
Book. ^1 



PRESENTED BY 









i^ZX^ 



2? 



LIFE AND WORK 

OF 

HENRY WARD BEECHER 



AN AUTHENTIC, IMPARTIAL AND COMPLETE HISTORY OF 
HIS PUBLIC CAREER AND PRIVATE LIFE 

from tl)t Crafcle to tlje oBratoe, 

REPLETE WITH 

ANECDOTES, INCIDENTS, PERSONAL REMINISCENCES AND 
CHARACTER SKETCHES. 

DESCRIPTIVE OF 

THE MAN AND HIS TIMES. 



By THOMAS Wt KNOX, 

Author of " Overland through Asia," " The Oriental World," " Underground, 
" Boy Travelers in the Far East," " Life of Robert Fulton," etc., etc. 



.^upetblp 31 flujittateb toritb a &tetf -JMate portrait of Mi. %izttyi y anti 
^iimerou? iFuH-^age <JHn0rarrinq? from <©ri0inai ®efl!0n?. 



SOLD ONLY BY SUBSCRIPTION. 



PUBLISHED BY 

WILSON & ELLIS, 

150 NASSAU ST., NEW YORK. 
1887. 



-E>*i 






Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1887, 

By The Hartford Publishing Company, 

In the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington, D. C. 

_ii± 

Kent Law Book Co., 
Jan. 22, 1937 
Gift 
Kent Law Boole Co., 
Jan. 22. 1937 



PREFACE 



It has been said by an eminent historian that the 
biography of no man can be properly written while he is 
yet alive. To no one will this remark apply with greater 
force than to him whose name has been foremost for 
nearly half a century as the pastor of Plymouth Church, 
who fearlessly preached freedom for the slave, and 
whose words have electrified a continent and sent a thrill 
to the heart of the whole English-speaking race. A 
man who was so highly distinguished for originality of 
thought, who has been called the Shakespeare of the 
century, the advocate of universal liberty, the friend of 
the oppressed everywhere, and who converted the Eng- 
lish public to a right view of the civil struggle in America, 
could only be fully and fairly appreciated when the grave 
had closed over him, and the mighty voice with which he 
spoke had been hushed forever. 

On the first Sunday of his first visit to New York, 
nearly thirty years ago, the author of this volume crossed 
Fulton Ferry and went to Plymouth Church " to hear 
Beecher." The words to which he listened on that occa- 



IV PREFACE. 

sion are still ringing in his ears despite the lapse of time 
and the many opportunities of later days to listen to this 
remarkable teacher and orator. From that pleasant sum- 
mer morning in 1858 may fairly date the origin of this 
memorial tribute, which is now placed before the public 
in the hope that it will meet the kindly reception which 
has been accorded to other books that bear the writer's 
name on their title-pages. 

Much of the data and material from which the volume 
was written was collected during Mr. Beecher's lifetime, 
but, with the opening thought of this preface ever in 
view, no effort was made to prepare it for publication in 
book-form until the sad event which spread mourning 
throughout the land. As now presented, the volume is 
an account of the life and work of Henry Ward Beecher 
from Litchfield to Greenwood — from the cradle to the 
grave. The estimates of the character and abilities of 
this remarkable man are by those who survive him and 
can fix his place in history as one who has ended his ca- 
reer and gone from our midst forever. 

The author's thanks are due to the many friends and 
acquaintances of Mr. Beecher who have supplied anec- 
dotes and personal recollections of this intellectual hero, 
and thus given us an insight into his character and daily 
life which would otherwise be wanting. Thanks are 
also due to the author's assistants who have aided in the 
collection and transcription of the events that make up 



PREFACE. V 

the personal and public life of the subject of the nar- 
rative ; to the newspapers of New York and Brooklyn 
that so fully recorded the incidents of Mr. Beecher's ill- 
ness and death ; and finally, but by no means least, to 
the publishers who have spared no energy in promptly 
issuing the volume, so that it may be read by the many 
admirers of the Plymouth pastor before time has 
dimmed their remembrance of the man who was pre- 
eminently typical of the age and the people and has 
been aptly called "a milestone on the highway of 
American progress to show how far we have progressed." 

T. W. K. 

New York, April, 1887. 



LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. 



Engraved fro??i original designs drawn expressly for this work 
by e?ninent artists. 

PAGE. 

i. Portrait of Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, . . Frontispiece. 

Engraved on steel expressly for this work from a photograph 

taken a short time previous to Mr. Beecher 1 's death. 

2. The Beecher Homestead at Litchfield, Conn., the 

Birth-place and Early Home of Henry Ward Beecher, 39 

3. An Incident in Mr. Beecher' s Boyhood. — He Contem- 

plates Running Away to Sea, 61 

4. A Dramatic Scene. — Throwing the Slave Chains to the 

Floor, 159 

5. Mr. Beecher Facing an English Mob in Philharmonic 

Hall, Liverpool, England, 195 

6. The "Freedom Ring." — Mr. Beecher Pleading for Money 

to Set a Slave Child Free, . . . . . .301 

7. Portrait of Mrs. Henry Ward Beecher, .... 437 

Engraved expressly for this work from a recent photograph. 

8. Mr. Beecher' s Residence, Brooklyn, N. Y., the House 

in which He Died 509 

9. Mr. Beecher' s Church, Brooklyn, N Y., called Plymouth 

Congregational Church, 523 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BEECHER FAMILY. 

The Genealogy. — American Origin. — Grandmother Hannah. — Joseph 
Beecher. — Lyman Beecher. — His First Marriage. — His First Pastor- 
ate. — East Hampton, Litchfield, Boston, Cincinnati. — An Active and 
Useful Career. — Three Times Married. — Father of Thirteen Children. 
— A Conspicuous Progeny. — Catherine Esther Beecher. — Edward 
Beecher, D.D. — Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. — Mrs. Isabella Beecher 
Hooker 25 



CHAPTER II. 

HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 

The Eighth Child.— Not the First Baby, Usually a Novelty in the Family. 
— Mrs. Stowe' s Reminiscences. — His Birthplace at Litchfield, Conn. 
— His Mother's Death. — Scene at the Death -bed. — Aunt Esther. — The 
Step-mother. — Henry Never had a Toy. — Doing Family Chores. — 
Primitive Life in New England. — Does not want to wear an Overcoat. 
—A, B, C School.— School-girls cut His Curls.— The District School. 



viii CONTENTS. 

— Not a Bright Pupil. — Difficulty in Memorizing. — No Elocutionary 
Ability. — Sent to School from Home. — Rev. Mr. Langdon's School. — 
A Student of Nature. — Boy's Debate on the Bible. — Miss Catherine's 
Young Ladies' School. — His Brief Career There. — His Practical 
Jokes. — The Umbrella Story. — The Grammar Contests. — Amusing 
Anecdotes. — Back Home 38 



CHAPTER III. 

HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 

Litchfield Scenery. — Atmosphere breathed by the Youth. — His Father 
removes to Boston. — Ambitious to become a Sailor. — Youthful 
Dreams. — Boston Latin School. — Mount Pleasant College. — Meets 
Miss Bullard. — His Methods of Study. — Learning Elocution. — Study- 
ing Mathematics. — Interested in Phrenology. — Teaching in the Win- 
ter Vacation. — Decides to become a Minister. — Graduates from Am- 
herst. — Lane Theological Seminary. — Editorial Work. — Graduates, 
and resolves to Marry 56 



CHAPTER IV. 

HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 

He Marries and Moves West. — Locates at Lawrenceburg, Ind. — An Arca- 
dian Life. — Gardening. — Missionary Work. — Editorial Work. — Ac- 
tive in Revivals. — Hardships of Western Life. — The Pastorate at 
Indianapolis. — The West Country. — Some Anecdotes. — His Fame 
Spreads. — His First Address in New York. — The Foreign Missionary 
Society. — Henry C. Bowen hears Him. — He receives an Offer 



CONTENTS. IX 

from Plymouth Church. — He accepts the Position at $1,500 per 
Annum 73 

CHAPTER V. 

HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 

The Originating Idea. — Site Secured. — Beecher invited to Preach. — His Ser- 
mon on the Occasion. — Romans xiv. 12. — He returns to Indianapolis. 
— Completion of the Organization. — The Name Plymouth Adopted. — 
Beecher the Unanimous Vote. — He receives a Call from Plymouth 
Church. — Hesitates, but Accepts. — Inauguration of a Long Term of 
Service. — Destruction of the Church by Fire in 1849. — ** is Rebuilt. 
— A Health Trip to Europe 96 

CHAPTER VI. 

IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 

Back from His Health Trip to Europe. — Plymouth Church and Beecher 
become Synonymous. — The Leading Abolitionist. — Webster's Atti- 
tude in Regard to the Fugitive Slave Bill. — Mr. Beecher's Excoria- 
tion. — Black List of the Union Safety Committee. — He Personally 
beseeches Merchants to stand Firm by Their Principles. — How he 
helped Mr. Bowen. — Flis Declaration of Principles. — The Fremont 
Campaign. — Wendell Phillips sheltered by Plymouth Church. — The 
Kansas Excitement. — Hostile Declarations from a Mob. — John 
Brown's Insurrection. — Beecher's Address. — John Brown's Chains 
rattled in the Tabernacle. — Few Reporters able to follow Beecher. — 
"Cross Fulton Ferry and follow the Crowd." — Rose W T ard. — Rose 
Terry's Contribution. — Sarah is Redeemed. — Continuing the Anti- 
Slavery Crusade 140 



X CONTENTS. - 

CHAPTER VII. 

IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

Recruiting. — First Long Island Regiment. — The Brooklyn Fourteenth. — 
Pets of Plymouth Church. — The Boys Attend Service. — "The Na- 
tional Flag." — An Eloquent Patriotic Appeal. — Applause in Church 
Rebuked. — Plymouth Church Barracks. — The Maine Regiment. — 
Church Parlors Occupied as a Hospital. — Visits to the Boys in Camp. 
— A Welcome Visitor. — Patriotic Editorials. — Relations with Secre- 
tary Stanton. — The National Fast. — Freedom of the People. — An 
Intellectual Disquisition. — His Visit to England. — His Invaluable 
Services as a Defender of the Union. — The Fort Sumter Celebration. 
— A Pleasant Reunion of Old-Time Friends. — The Restored Union. — 
The Keynote to Beecher's Future Course in Regard to the South. — 
Startling News. — Lincoln's Assassination. — Beecher's Grief. — The 
Funeral Oration. — The Martyr President 169 

CHAPTER VIII. 

HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 

His Greatest Oratorical Effort. — Going Abroad for a Vacation. — Three 
Months on the Continent. — Reluctantly consents to speak in Eng- 
land. — British Sympathy with the South. — Speech at Manchester. — 
Facing a British Mob. — Unsuccessful Attempts to silence Him. — 
How He Triumphed. — Speaking Plain Truths. — Shaking Hands with 
an Umbrella. — Speech at Glasgow. — Opposition of the Blockade- 
Runners. — His Address at Liverpool. — Inflammatory Placards on the 
Streets. — Scenes of Great Disorder. — Making Himself Heard — Ar- 
rival in London. — Famous in Clubs and Social Circles. — Prostrated 
with Exhaustion. — Speech in Exeter Hall. — A Friendly Audience. — 
Immense Enthusiasm. — An Historical Narrative. — Change of Public 
Opinion. — Effect of Mr. Beecher's Speeches 185 



CONTENTS. XI 

CHAPTER IX. 

HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 

His Temperament leads to Political Affiliation. — One of the Early 
Abolitionists. —Clay. — Calhoun. — Henry B. Stanton. — The Pulpit 
and Slavery. — Seward. — Greeley. — Buchanan. — The Drift of Senti- 
ment Previous to the War. — His Views at the Time. — The Fremont 
Campaign. — The " Political Parson." — He advocates Lincoln. — Belief 
that His Election would Precipitate War. — Visit to England. — His 
Valuable Service as a Defender of the Union in England. — Lincoln's 
Re-election. — After the War. — Jefferson Davis. — President Johnson. 
— General Grant. — A Southern Tour. — " The North and South." — 
General Fitzhugh Lee. — He becomes a "Mugwump." — Supporting 
Cleveland. — Old Ties Sundered. — Civil Service Reform. — Beecher 
and Curtis interview the President. — Democratic Resolutions 209 



CHAPTER X. 

HIS LITERARY LIFE. 

Journalistic and Literary Experience. — The New York Independent. — 
The Christian Union. — Star Papers. — List of His Books. — Reluc- 
tance at Literary Composition. — His First Work, " Lectures to 
Young Men." — Success of the Book. — Its Enormous Sale. — First 
Work of an Indiana Author reprinted in England. — How He re- 
garded It. — Summary of the Lectures. — Industry and Idleness. — 
Pointed Sentences and Telling Truths. — A Forcible Style. — Dishon- 
esty and its Consequences. — Evils of Riches as Such. — "Our Portrait 
Gallery." — Gamblers and Gambling. — " The Strange Woman." — The 
Theatre and Its Evils. — Views modified in Later Life. — Mr. Beecher 
and Henry Irving . 240 



Xll CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER XL 

HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 

Sixteen Years a Contributor to the New York Ledger. — How His Connec- 
tion with the Paper Began. — " A Cannon-ball in the Hat." — Suggest- 
ions for a Novel. — How "Norwood" came to be Written. — Mr. 
Beecher's Dilatoriness. — His Outline of the Story. — Mr. Beecher's 
Fondness for Horses. — Riding behind Dexter. — Introducing Mr. Bon- 
ner to London Punch. — Comments on Edward Everett's Death. 
— How He Misspelled. — Answering Troublesome Questions. — De- 
nial of Current Rumors. — Never played Cards. — Visiting Bonner's 
Stables 250 

CHAPTER XII. 

HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 

l ' Norwood ; or, Life North and South." — Its Plot and Object. — Norwood 
and its Population. — Abiah Cathcart and his Peculiarities. — R«ichel 
Liscomb. — A Love-making Scene. — How the Momentous Question 
was Asked. — The Country Doctor. — The Bachelor Uncle. — What 
constitutes a Gentleman. — Mr. Beecher's Views regarding Will- 
Power. — Doctoring through the Imagination. — Rose and Alice. — 
Negro Pete. — Polly Marble on getting Religion. — Tom Heywood's 
Letter. — The Battle of Gettysburg. — A Monument to Surgeons and 
Hospital Nurses. — Marriage Bells 268 

CHAPTER XIII. 

HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 

The Greatest Orator of the Century. — Characteristics of His Oratory. — Ex- 
temporizing a Sermon. — A Reporter's Experience. — Power with an 



CONTENTS. Xill 

Audience. — His Great Earnestness. — Thoughts Rarely committed to 
Paper. — Doctrinal Addresses. — Peculiarities of His Lectures. — Never 
the Same Successively. — Weakness in Statistical Matters. — His Mi- 
metic Skill. — His Last Public Address. — Congregational Singing. — 
Eloquence of His Prayers. — Always dealt with Questions of the Time. 
— Where Materials were Obtained. — A Curious Autograph. — His 
Great Lecture Tour in the West. — The New York Independent on 
Beecher 284 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 

Examples of His Oratorical Power. — Striking Passages culled from the 
Abundance. — How to speak of the Absent. — Ideal Faith. — The 
True Plan of Life. — "The Church has been so Fearful of Amuse- 
ments that the Devil has had the Care of Them." — Majesty in 
Anger. — Churches as Mutual Insurance Companies. — A Babe is a 
Mother's Anchor. — Overplus of Eveiy thing but Punishments. — Re- 
ligion with some Men like a Church-bell, to be Rung only on Sacred 
Occasions. — The Bible and its Commentators. — Truths of the Bible 
Like Gold in the Soil. — Character, Like Porcelain, must be painted 
Before Glazing. — A Lie Always needs a Truth for a Handle 305 

CHAPTER XV. 

INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 

Interesting Reminiscences and Anecdotes. — Major Pond's Story. — Beecher 
"Democratic Through and Through." — Remembrance of Old Parish- 
ioners. — The Old Lady from Indianapolis. — His Profits from Lectur- 
ing. — Angry only Once. — Refused to go to Private Houses. — Fond- 



XIV CONTENTS. 

ness for Children. — Care for Two Children on a Railway Train. — 
Never wore a Silk Hat but Once. — "Playing Horse." — Beecher and 
Sir Samuel Cunard. — Preparing Lunch with His Own Hands. — The 
Drunken Man at the Lecture. — Fast Riding on a Train. — General 
King's Recollections. — Beecher as a Travelling Companion. — Sleep- 
ing under Table-cloths. — " Mutton or Beef ? " 325 



CHAPTER XVI. 

HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 

His Boyhood Gardening. — Early Love for Plants and Animals. —His Gar- 
den at Lawrenceburg, Ind. — His Encouragement of Societies. — Love 
for Domestic Animals: — "Cackling," His Last Article. — His Last 
Request. — The Floral Pall and Wreath. — A Work on Flowers, Fruits, 
and Farming. — Some Interesting Extracts. — Mistakes He had Made. 
— Winter Nights for Reading. — Shiftless Tricks. — Portrait of an 
Anti-Book Farmer. — Encouragement to Agricultural Writing. — Ad- 
vantages of Farm Education. — Spring Work for Public- Spirited Men. 
— The Farm at Peekskill. — A Costly Experiment. — His Summer Re- 
treat. — An Active Farm-Hand 348 

CHAPTER XVII. 

YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 

Causes of Mr. Beecher' s Success in the Pulpit. — Originality of Thought 
and Expression. — His Great Power of Will. — How the Yale Lectures 
were Delivered. — Advice to Young Preachers. — Constant Study of 
Nature and Men. — Aims to ennoble Hearers. — Opposed to Perfunc- 
tory Preaching. — External Forms Derided. — " Has the Pulpit lost its 
Power ? " — Why the Question has Arisen. — Personal Emotion. — 



CONTENTS. XV 

Earnestness, Faith, and Motive Power Essential to Good Preaching. 
— Criticism and Questions Invited. — " Show Sermons the Tempta- 
tion of the Devil." — Preaching Should be adapted to the Audience. 
— Antipathy to Pulpits. — Health very Important. — Extemporaneous 
Preaching. — System Absolutely Necessary. — Sunday-schools the 
Young People's Church. — Temptations of Praise. — Sorrow an Excel- 
lent Teacher 369 

CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 

Mr. Beecher's Reasons for writing It. — The First Volume published in 
1872. — Its High Literary Character. — Plans for the Work. — Author- 
ities Consulted. — Spirit in which the Author Wrote. — Meeting Objec- 
tions. — The Four Gospels. — Their Critics. — Accepting Their Truth. — 
Ministry of Angels. — The Time Ripe for Christ's Appearance. — The 
Annunciation. — Characters of Mary and Joseph. — Deprecation of 
Protestant Reaction from Mary. — Herod's Hatred. — The Flight into 
Egypt. — Childhood of Jesus. — John and the Voice in the Wilderness. 
— Discussion of Forms of Baptism. — Personal Description of Christ. 
— Miracles of the Four Gospels. — Marriage at Cana. — Judean Minis- 
try. — Lesson at Jacob's Well. — Early Labors in Galilee. — Discussion 
of the Sermon on the Mount. — End of the Volume. — Publication 
Suspended. — New Contract of 1886 384 

CHAPTER XIX. 

THE GREAT SCANDAL. 

Tilton a Reporter in 185 1. — Attached to The Independent. — His Domestic 
Troubles. — Interviews and Correspondence. — The Tripartite Agree- 
ment. — "Our Mutual Friend." — The Church Investigates. — Beecher 



XVI CONTENTS. 

Exonerated. — Commencement of the Libel Suit. — Complaint and An- 
swer. — How the Jury stood at the End. — Eminent Counsel on Both 
Sides. — Official Report of the Trial. — Tilton on the Stand. — His 
Remarkable Story for the Prosecution. — Cross-Examination. — His 
Version of the Various Interviews with Beecher. — Mrs. Victoria C. 
Woodhull's Connection with the Case. — Frank Moulton and His 
Testimony. — Other Witnesses for the Plaintiff. — The Prosecution 
rests Its Case. — Rulings of Judge Neilson 400 

CHAPTER XX. 

m THE GREAT SCANDAL— CONTINUED. 

The Defence Opens. — Mr. Tracy's Appeal. — What He proposed to Prove. 
— The Alleged Confession. — Damaging Evidence against Mr. Tilton. — 
His Alleged Improprieties at Various Places. — Mrs. Woodhull Again. 
— Mr. Moulton' s Evidence Contradicted. — Various Witnesses for the 
Defence. — Mr. Beecher on the Stand. — Sensation in Court. — His Oath 
in the New England Form. — His Acquaintance with the Plaintiff. — 
Denial of Improper Conduct. — The Beecher-Moulton-Tilton Interview. 
— Mr. Beecher' s Explanation of His Remorse. — Cross-Examination. 
— Mr. Moulton Recalled. — Letter from Mrs. Tilton to Judge Neilson. 
— The Plaintiff Recalled. — The Summing Up by the Defence. — Judge 
Porter and Mr. Evarts. — The Prosecution Follows. — Failure of the 
Jury to Agree. — End of the Six Months' Trial 418 

CHAPTER* XXI. 

HOME-LIFE. 

Mr. Beecher's Domestic Habits. — Early to Bed, Early to Rise. — An After- 
noon Nap. — Reluctant to leave Home. — Plain Fare. — No More 
Nocturnal Suppers. — His Work Hours. — Preparatory Work. — A 



CONTENTS. xvii 

Punctilious Correspondent. — Answers all Letters with his Own Hand. 
— Persevering Industry. — His Old Home on the Heights. — Its Art 
Treasures. — Stuart's Reminiscence. — Beecher's Temperance Princi- 
ples. — Financiering. — Valuable Collection of Steel Engravings. — De- 
scription of His Library and Methods of Work. — An Amateur Biblio- 
phile 436 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 

Rev. C. E. Babb.— Early Days in the West— The "Pepper-Box" 
Church. — Comparative Obscurity until Thirty-five Years Old. — 
Judge Tom-gee' s Meeting in Boyhood. — Sam Payne's Experiences. — 
Captain W. L. Watson. — Mr. Beecher as Chaplain. — "Our Boys." 
— Nelson Sizer. — Mr. Beecher's Phrenological Development. — His 
Friendship for his Old School-mate. — Dr. Spurzheim. — Dr. E. E. 
Marcy. — College Days. — Rev. S. Giffard Nelson. — Plymouth Bethel. 
— General Horatio C. King. — Mr. Beecher's Ideas about Church 
Music. — Theatre-going. — Private Theatricals. — Soldiers' Home at 
Leavenworth, Kan. — Professor R. W. Raymond. — Mr. Beecher as a 
Lapidary. — Mr. Thomas G. Shearman. — Mr. Beecher's Charity. — His 
Sympathetic and Sensitive Nature. — Mrs. Sarah Cole. — A Reminis- 
cence of Mr. Beecher's First Sermon in Brooklyn. — Allan Forman. — 
Mr. Beecher plays Marbles with the Boys 454 

CHAPTER XXIII. 

REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 

Fishing with Lampson at Litchfield. — Result of Divine Mercy. — An April 
Fool. — An Old Reporter's Reminiscences. — A Friend to Newspaper 



XVlii CONTENTS. 

Men. — Knowing One's Own Country. — The Mood Necessary for 
Work. — The Leather Promissory Note. — Weak Coffee. — The Warm 
Icicle. — A Feast at Waterbury . — Dr. Hall and Mr. Beecher. — Mr. 
Beecher's Humor.— A Total Abstainer at Public Dinners. — Mr. 
Beecher' s Visits to Washington. — His Dinner Habits. — A Bridal 
Substitute. — Hon. Wiilard Bartlett. — Mr. Beecher's Fondness for 
Dogs. — The Prayer for Delivery from Sudden Death. — A Little Boy's 
Compliment. — Last Appearance in Public in New York. — Dr. Tal- 
mage. — Mr. Beecher a Good Swimmer. — The Debating Society. — 
The "Beecher Calendar." — Rev. Frank Russell. — Rev. William M. 
Taylor. — Crossing the East River on the Ice. — Eating Candy like a 
School-boy. — The Railway Lunch- Counter. — Misunderstood in a Ser- 
mon. — Dead Letters. — The Photographs. — The Stomach the Boiler of 
the System. — The Giddy Gusher's Reminiscences. — Mr. Beecher's 
Friendship for Actors. — His Present to Ellen Terry 485 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 

Mr. Beecher's Visit to England in 1886. — Declines to Interfere in Eng- 
lish Politics. — Preaching and Lecturing. — Declines a Reception on 
Returning Home. — His Last Sermon in Plymouth Church. — The 
Fatal Stroke of Apoplexy. — How the News was Received. — Incidents 
of His Illness. — Sinking Steadily. — His Death on Tuesday, March 
nth. — Sympathy for the Family. — Private Service at. the House.— 
A Public Funeral without Crape. — Floral Decorations. — Lying in 
State. — Services Simultaneously in Five Churches. — Testimony of a 
Hebrew. — The Closing Ceremony. — Laid at Rest 518 



CONTENTS. XIX 

CHAPTER XXV. 

ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 

Tributes from Many Christian Pulpits. — All Denominations Honor Him. 
— Loss of Beecher Like the Removal of a Mountain. — His Speeches 
in England one Long Speech. — His Fervid Eloquence. — The Great 
Leader in Pulpit and Republic. — Who will Wear His Mantle?— The 
Shakespeare of the Christian Pulpit. — A Marvellous Imagination — 
Wonderful Knowledge of Character. — Great in the Life of the Re- 
public. — The Most Striking Figure of Our Time. — The Incarnation 
of Love. — A Part of America's Life. — Tributes from the Hebrews 
of New York. — A Great Star Below the Horizon. — The Representa- 
tive of Democracy in the Pulpit. — The End 536 



THE LIFE AND WORK 

OF 

Henry Ward Beecher. 



CHAPTER I. 

THE BEECHER FAMILY. 

The Genealogy. — American Origin. — Grandmother Hannah. — Joseph 
Beecher. — Lyman Beecher. — His First Marriage. — His First Pastor- 
ate. — East Hampton, Litchfield, Boston, Cincinnati. — An Active and 
Useful Career. — Three Times Married. — Father of Thirteen Children. 
—A Conspicuous Progeny. — Catherine Esther Beecher. — Edward 
Beecher, D.D. — Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe. — Mrs. Isabella Beecher 
Hooker. 

Henry Ward Beecher was born at Litchfield, Conn., 
on the 24th day of June, 1813. He was the eighth 
child of the Rev. Lyman Beecher and Roxanna Foote 
Beecher, who had moved to Litchfield from East Hamp- 
ton, L. I., some three years earlier. 

The circumstances of the minister and his family were 
humble. His salary of eight hundred dollars, not regu- 
larly paid, was inadequate to the maintenance of so large 
2 



26 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a family, and additional income was obtained by taking 
to board young ladies attending a neighboring school. 

The Beecher family in America has a notable history. 
The peculiar qualities that marked Henry Ward Beecher 
were characteristic of his ancestry. Hannah Beecher, a 
widow, who came over with John Davenport in 1637, 
was a woman who possessed the endowments shown by 
the Beechers ever since. Coming to Boston when the 
theocracy was excited over the tenets attributed to Anne 
Hutchinson, she sympathized with the Antinomian 
movement that was exerting such a remarkable influence 
in Massachusetts Bay. That dispute affected even the 
distribution of town lots, and as Mrs. Beecher had been 
induced to emigrate by a promise of her husband's share 
in the town lot distribution in Boston town, it affected 
her very seriously indeed. Giving up all idea of acquir- 
ing a home in Massachusetts, she accompanied her pas- 
tor to Quinnipiac, now New Haven, and there, under a 
spreading oak-tree growing on Hannah Beecher's land, 
John Davenport preached the first sermon heard in New 
Haven, April 15, 1638. 

Hannah Beecher, who in England followed the hum- 
ble occupation of a midwife, brought with her to New 
England her son, John Beecher. John Beecher's son 
Joseph was noted for his wonderful strength, which he 
proved to admiring friends by lifting a barrel of cider 
and drinking from the bung-hole. Joseph Beecher's son 



THE BEECHER FAMILY. - 2? 

Nathaniel, and his grandson David, were both able to 
lift a barrel of cider, but history is silent as to whether 
they were accustomed to drink out of the bung. Nathan- 
iel and David Beecher were blacksmiths, Nathaniel's anvil 
standing on the stump of the old tree under which John 
Davenport preached his first sermon. David Beecher 
was considered one of the best read men in New Eng- 
land, being particularly well versed in astronomy, geog- 
raphy, and history. He was five times married. His 
third wife, Esther Lyman, was of Scotch descent, and was 
noted for her joyous and hopeful temperament, as well 
as for her strong mind and excellent character. She was 
the mother of Lyman Beecher, Henry Ward Beecher's 
father. 

Lyman Beecher was born October 12, 1775, of Esther 
Lyman, David Beecher's third wife, who contributed a 
strain of Scotch blood to the Beecher stock, already of 
English and Welsh extraction. Lyman Beecher was her 
only child, and she died of consumption two days after 
he was born. He was such a puny babe, having been 
prematurely born, that the nurse, who was laboring to 
save his mother's life, actually wrapped him up and laid 
him aside, believing it useless to try to keep him alive : 
" So you see," Lyman Beecher writes in his autobiog- 
raphy, " it was but by a hair's-breadth that I got a foot- 
hold in this world." He was raised by bottle under the 
care of an aunt in North Guilford. As a boy his passion 



28 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

was for fishing. He couldn't leave off until the bull- 
heads had quit biting. He developed much physical 
strength among the Guilford hills. When he entered 
Yale College its scientific apparatus comprised a great 
rusty orrery as big as a mill-wheel, a rusty four-foot tel- 
escope, an air-pump that would never have killed a 
mouse, a dingy prism, and an elastic hoop to illustrate 
centrifugal force. Slaves were then owned in New Eng- 
land, and Lyman Beecher was made a fag to an upper 
classman ; but he broke in the windows of his student 
master at midnight with brickbats, and broke up the old 
aristocratic college custom. 

Lyman Beecher came twice to death's door. He tried 
to skate over Long Island Sound, fell through the ice, 
and saved himself with great difficulty. The same year 
he almost died of scarlet fever. Yale College students 
were then infected with scepticism. Students called 
each other Voltaire, Rousseau, and D'Alembert. The 
college church was almost extinct. The students idol- 
ized Tom Paine. Intemperance, profanity, gambling, and 
licentiousness were common. Lyman Beecher learned 
to gamble, won at first, lost next, then got into debt, 
and then took a week off, cured himself of the mania, 
and never touched a card after that. Old Dr. Dwight 
preached for six months on the subject of infidelity, and 
changed the temper of the students. Lyman Beecher 
was butler of the college. The butlery is now an ob- 



THE BEECHER FAMILY. 29 

solete institution. An English parson bought for him a 
hogshead of porter, which he retailed to the students, 
with cider, metheglin, pipes and tobacco, and by the 
profit thus obtained he helped to pay his own way 
through college. 

After his collegiate course at Yale, he became pastor 
of a church at East Hampton, L. I., where he received a 
salary of $300 and a dilapidated parsonage. He stirred 
the country with a sermon that in 1804 he preached 
upon the death of Alexander Hamilton, whom Aaron 
Burr shot in a duel. When in 18 10 Lyman Beecher re- 
moved to Litchfield Corners he assailed the vice of in- 
temperance, then so common in the land of the Puritans 
that formal meetings of the clergy were not infrequently 
accompanied by gross excesses. His sermons were ex- 
tempore in form, but were carefully thought out, gen- 
erally while he was engaged in active physical exercise. 
He had striking peculiarities, and was accustomed to 
relieve the excitement occasioned by preaching by play- 
ing " Auld Lang Syne'' on the fiddle or dancing the 
double-shuffle in his parlor. He remained at Litchfield 
sixteen years. From. 1826 to 1832 Dr. Beecher was 
pastor of the Hanover Street Church, Boston. Here 
his influence was so powerful, his controversies with 
Unitarianism and the Finney system of revivals* so 
trenchant and triumphant, that his fame went abroad in 
all the land ; and he seemed to be the man of all others 



30 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to help build up a Western school of theology. From 
1832 to 1842 he was president of the Lane Theological 
Seminary, near Cincinnati, O. Upon his retirement 
from the Lane Seminary, Dr. Beecher returned to Bos- 
ton, where he lived until 1856, when he removed to 
Brooklyn, where his death occurred in 1863, in the 
eighty-eighth year of his age. Dr. Beecher was one of 
the twelve children of his father, David Beecher, and he 
was himself the father of thirteen children, of whom 
Henry Ward Beecher was the eighth. He was three 
times married, first in 1799, then in 1817, and again in 
1836. It is unnecessary here to recapitulate the labors 
that gave him his fame as a theologian, orator, writer, 
and leader in great moral movements, such as the tem- 
perance and anti-slavery causes. 

Of the children who attained distinction, there were 
Catherine Esther Beecher, who wrote a number of 
books upon education and domestic economy ; Edward 
Beecher, D.D., a studious theologian ; Harriet Elizabeth 
(Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe), author of " Uncle Tom's 
Cabin ; " Charles Beecher, Thomas K. Beecher, and 
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker. 

Catherine Esther Beecher was the eldest of Dr. Ly- 
man Beecher's family. She was born at East Hampton, 
L. L, September 6, 1800. She has been dead only a few 
years. Catherine Beecher never married, her life being 



THE BEECHER FAMILY. 3 1 

devoted to promoting education. She was for many 
years principal of a school at Hartford. Her writings 
were mostly on educational and domestic subjects, 
including a work on the " Duties " and one on the 
" Wrongs " of women. Her only work that is sought 
for nowadays is " Truth Stranger Than Fiction," which 
contains the story of the infelicitous love-affair of the 
late Delia Bacon, the originator of the Bacon-Shake- 
speare controversy with the Rev. Mr. McWhorter. This 
book was never really published, but it is the only one of 
Miss Beecher's books that will be remembered. Cath- 
erine Beecher also wrote the memoirs of her brother, 
George Beecher, a promising clergyman, who was killed 
in 1843 by the accidental discharge of his own gun. 

Edward Beecher, D.D., was born at East Hampton, 
L. I., in 1804, and graduated from Yale College in 1822. 
He studied theology at Andover and New Haven, his 
first charge (1826 to 1831) being the Park Street Congre- 
gational Church, Boston. From 1831 to 1844 he was 
president of the Illinois College, at Jacksonville. In 
1844 he became pastor of the Salem Street Church, 
Boston, and in 1856 he removed to Galesburg, 111., 
where he was for many years pastor of the Congrega- 
tional Church. Dr. Beecher's most noteworthy books 
are, " The Conflict of Ages," 1854, and " The Concord of 
Ages," i860. In these he argues that man's life upon 



32 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

earth is the outgrowth of a former existence as well as a 
prelude to a future one. The conflict between good and 
evil which has been going on for ages is to be ended with 
this life, and then all the conflicts are to be harmonized 
into an everlasting concord. 

Harriet Elizabeth Beecher was born at Litchfield, 
Conn., June 14, 18 12. In her fifteenth year she became 
a teacher in a school at Hartford conducted by her sister, 
Catherine Beecher, where she remained until 1832, when 
she went with her father's family to Cincinnati. There, 
in 1836, she was married to Calvin E. Stowe, recently 
deceased, who in 1833 had become professor of languages 
and biblical literature in the seminary. During the ear- 
lier years of her married life Mrs. Stowe gave little atten- 
tion to literature. Her time was devoted to her house- 
hold duties and the care of her children. Mrs. Stowe's 
family now comprises only her two daughters — Harriet 
Beecher, called after her mother, and Eliza, so named in 
honor of Professor Stowe's first wife. These sisters are 
twins, and were the first born of Mrs. Stowe's children. 
Another daughter is Mrs. Allen, an invalid, whose hus- 
band is the rector of the Church of the Messiah, in Bos- 
ton. Mrs. Stowe had only one son, Charles Stowe, a 
young clergyman in Hartford. Mrs. Stowe's first book, 
" Mayflower ; or, Sketches of the Descendants of the 
Puritans," was not published until 1849, when she had 



THE BEECHER FAMILY. 33 

already reached her thirty-seventh year. Although pub- 
lished both in London and New York, this volume met 
with no marked success until after the appearance of 
" Uncle Tom's Cabin," in 1852. The popularity of the 
latter work, as all the world knows, was phenomenal. It 
was originally published in weekly parts, from June 5, 
185 1, to April 1, 1852, in the New Era, an anti-slavery 
paper in Washington, but it was not until its appearance 
in book- form that it made a sensation. In eight weeks 
after the appearance of the first Boston edition, in two 
volumes, 100,000 copies were sold. The first London 
edition was published in May, 1852, but it was not large, 
the publishers doubting the popularity of pictures of 
negro life in England. Before the close of the year it is 
estimated that in England alone as many as a million 
copies had been sold. In September, 1852, one London 
house gave an order for 10,000 copies daily, which was 
regularly filled for a month. The sale in the United 
States reached 200,000 within a year, and 313,000 in four 
years. No other work of fiction ever came near it in cir- 
culation. Before the close of the year 1852 it had been 
translated into French, Italian, Spanish, Danish, Swed- 
ish, Dutch, Flemish, German, Polish and Magyar, and 
subsequently Portuguese, Welsh, Russian, Wendish, Wal- 
lachian, Armenian, Arabic, and Romaic translations were 
made. Indeed, it is said that there were even Chinese 
and Japanese versions. Apart from the popularity of 



34 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Uncle Tom's Cabin " as a novel, it has had exceptional 
success as a play. Almost as soon as the story was pub- 
lished it was dramatized for the Fox family. Mrs. G. 
C. Howard, who still plays Topsy, was the original Little 
Eva, thirty-four years ago. Besides the Fox version 
there have been many others, Mrs. Stowe preparing one 
which was published in 1855, with the title of "The 
Christian Slave." Probably no production in the whole 
history of literature provoked the bitter animosities that 
resulted from the publication of " Uncle Tom's Cabin." 
It would be a hopeless task to repeat the story of the 
long controversy. As the first powerful blow dealt to 
American slavery, as it existed previous to 1861, the book 
naturally became hateful to the South, and Mrs. Stowe 
was for a time the most hated woman in the United 
States. This book, however, gave her the widest reputa- 
tion of any member of the Beecher family, and her fame 
as the author of " Uncle Tom's Cabin " will probably 
prove the most lasting. 

The younger members of the Beecher family who at- 
tained to distinction as clergymen are Charles, born in 
181 5, and Thomas K., born in 1824. Charles Beecher 
was successively pastor of a church at Newark, N. J., 
and Georgetown, Mass. He edited the " Life " of his 
father, Lyman Beecher, and was joint author, with his 
sister, Mrs. Stowe, of " Sunny Memories of Foreign 



THE BEECHER FAMILY. 35 

Lands." Thomas K. Beecher was for a time pastor of 
the New England Congregational Church, Brooklyn, 
E. D., but in 1857 he removed to Elmira, N. Y., where 
he remained until a year or two ago. Another well- 
known member of the Beecher family was Mrs. Isabella 
Beecher Hooker, who was an active champion of the 
claim of women to the ballot. Of the remaining chil- 
dren of Lyman Beecher one died in infancy and three 
were content to live the lives and perform the homely 
duties of ordinary mortals. 

The following anecdote is told of the parents of Henry 
Ward Beecher : " Lyman Beecher was an utterly im- 
practicable and erratic person out of the pulpit, while 
his wife, who was refined and well balanced, had much 
of her time occupied in undoing the mischief her husband 
had done. For instance, Lyman Beecher once bought 
and sent home a bale of cotton, simply because it was 
cheap, without any idea or plan for its use. His wife, at 
first discomfited, at once projected the unheard-of luxury 
of a carpet, carded and spun the cotton, hired it woven, 
cut and sewed it to fit the parlor, stretched and nailed it 
to the garret floor, and brushed it over with thin paste. 
Then she sent to her New York brother for oil-paints, 
learned from an encyclopaedia how to prepare them, and 
then adorned the carpet with groups of flowers, imitating 
those in her small yard and garden. This illustrates at 



36 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

once the improvidence of the father and the useful and 
aesthetic turn of mind of the mother, who seems to 
have had high ideals and great perseverance in attain- 
ing excellence under most unfavorable circumstances. 
Lyman Beecher was passionately fond of children ; his 
wife was not. Lyman Beecher was imaginative, impul- 
sive, and averse to hard study. His wife was calm and 
self-possessed, and solved mathematical problems not 
only for practical purposes, but because she enjoyed that 
kind of mental effort. Lyman Beecher was trained as a 
dialectician and felt that he excelled in argumentation, 
and yet his wife, without any such training, he remarked, 
was the only person he had met that he felt was fully 
his equal in an argument. He had that kind of love for 
his children that moved him to caress and fondle them ; 
she, on the contrary, did not care to nurse or tend them, 
although she was eminently benevolent, and very tender 
and sympathetic. In other words, as the late Catherine 
Beecher once wrote, ' My father seemed by natural or- 
ganization to have what one usually deemed the natural 
traits of woman, while my mother had some of those 
which often are claimed to be the distinctive attributes 
of man.' " 

On one occasion the members of his church had, by 
dint of much effort, raised $100 to buy furniture for the 
parsonage. The money, in bank bills, was given to Dr. 
Beecher, who crowded it into his vest-pocket and forgot 



THE BEECHER FAMILY. tf 

all about it. When sought for a few days later, it 
could nowhere be found, and for some time all trace of 
the money was lost. It was finally ascertained that the 
absent-minded doctor had dropped the roll of bills into 
the contribution-box one Sunday morning when it was 
being circulated for the benefit of a line of stages that 
was being run at a loss because of its owner's refusal to 
break the Sabbath. 

Once Dr. Beecher left his horse tied to a tree in the 
woods, and the poor animal remained there two entire 
days without food or water. 



CHAPTER II. 

HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 

The Eighth Child.— Not the First Baby, Usually a Novelty in the Family. 
— Mrs. Stowe's Reminiscences. — His Birthplace at Litchfield, Conn. 
—His Mother's Death.— Scene at the Death-bed.— Aunt Esther. —The 
Step-mother. — Henry Never had a Toy. — Doing Family Chores. — 
Primitive Life in New England. — Does not want to wear an Overcoat. 
— A, B, C School. — School-girls cut His Curls. — The District School. 
— Not a Bright Pupil. — Difficulty in Memorizing. — No Elocutionary 
Ability. — Sent to School from Home. — Rev. Mr. Langdon's School. — 
A Student of Nature. — Boy's Debate on the Bible. — Miss Catherine's 
Young Ladies' School. — His Brief Career There. — His Practical 
Jokes. — The Umbrella Story. — The Grammar Contests. — Amusing 
Anecdotes. — Back Home. 

In such a numerous family as that in which Henry Ward 
arrived, a baby is not the novelty and attraction that the 
first-born always is, and so throughout most of his life 
he had to take care of himself. 

As Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe says in a sketch of 
her brother Henry Ward, in her volume " Self-Made 
Men," " The first child of a family is generally an ob- 
ject of high hopes and anxious and careful attention. 
They are observed, watched, and if the parents are so 
disposed, carefully educated, and often over-watched and 
over-educated. But in large families, as time rolls on 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 41 

and children multiply, especially to those in straitened 
worldly circumstances, all the interest of novelty dies 
out before the advent of younger children, and they are 
apt to find their way in early life unwatched and un- 
heralded. Dr. Beecher's low salary, and sometimes slow 
payment, made the problem of feeding, clothing, and 
educating a family of ten children a hard one. The 
family was constantly enlarged by boarders— young ladies 
attending the female academy, and whose board helped 
somewhat to the support of the domestic establishment, 
but added greatly to the cares of the head -manager. The 
younger members of the Beecher family therefore came 
into existence in a great battling household of older peo- 
ple, all going their separate ways, and having their own 
grown-up interests to carry. The child growing up in 
this busy, active circle had constantly impressed upon it a 
sense of personal insignificance as a child, and the abso- 
lute need of the virtue of passive obedience and non-re- 
sistance as regards all grown-up people. To be statedly 
washed and dressed and catechised, got to school at reg- 
ular hours in the morning, and to bed inflexibly at the 
earliest possible hour at night, comprised about all the 
attention that children could receive in these days." 
And so young Henry Ward did not receive the atten- 
tion and deference as a younger child that would have 
been bestowed on a first-born. 

The house in Litchfield in which Henry Ward 



42 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Beecher was born, June 24, 1813, was a square structure 
with an L and a hipped roof. It stood in a yard filled 
with tamaracks, elms, maples, and other trees. The old- 
fashioned two-leaved double door on the east looked 
over toward Bantam River. Great apple-trees filled the 
orchard in the rear. The dining-room contained a fa- 
mous Russian stove, built so as to warm six rooms, includ- 
ing the large parlor, where ministers met and talked and 
smoked until they could not see across the room. A 
fragrant honeysuckle shaded the dining-room window. 
The love of flowers was inherited by Mr. Beecher from 
his mother, who, just before he was born, spent much 
time amid flowers about their homestead. She was con- 
stantly exchanging flower-seeds and slips of shrubs. The 
letters of his mother describe him as a merry, clinging 
child. " I write," she wrote to her sister in November, 
1 8 14, " sitting upon my feet, with my paper on the seat 
of a chair, while Henry is hanging round my neck and 
climbing on my back, and Harriet (Mrs. Stowe) is beg- 
ging me to please to make her a baby." Mr. Beecher's 
mother was from a family that traced its genealogy back 
to the man who aided King Charles to conceal himself in 
the royal oak, which stood in a field of clover. As a re- 
ward he was knighted, and the Foote coat-of-arms bears 
an oak for its crest and a clover-leaf for its quarterings. 
Mrs. Beecher possessed a fine presence, and there was 
such dignity and sweetness in her manner that the pict- 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 43 

ure of her impressed upon Henry Ward Beecher's mind 
when he was three year's old remained the chief treasure 
of his memory all through life. She died on September 
23, 1 8 16, when eight little children, among them her son 
Henry Ward, were weeping about her bedside. Her 
parting message to them was, " Trust in God, my chil- 
dren. He can do more for you than I have done or 
could do." Six members of her family had died in Sep- 
tember, and it was always regarded as a fatal month, and 
she had a presentiment that whatever was of ill omen 
would happen to her in that month. It was her wish 
that all of her sons should devote themselves to the 
ministry, and they all did so. Lyman Beecher said that 
after her death his first sensation was one of terror, like 
that of a child suddenly shut out alone in the dark. In- 
tellectually and morally, he regarded her as the better 
and stronger half of himself. He had depended upon 
her so much that once after her death, when in trouble, 
he sat down and " poured out his soul " in a letter to her. 
Henry Ward was too small to go to his mother's fu- 
neral. Mrs. Stowe once wrote : " I remember his golden 
curls and little black frock as he frolicked like a kitten in 
the sun in ignorant joy." They told him that they had 
laid his mother in the ground and that she had gone to 
heaven. One morning he was discovered with great zeal 
and earnestness digging under the window. His sister 
Catherine asked him what he was doing. Lifting his 



44 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

curly head with great simplicity, he said, " Why, I'm 
going to heaven to find ma." The passage in " Uncle 
Tom's Cabin " where Augustine St. Clair describes his 
mother's influence is a simple reproduction of the influ- 
ence felt by Roxanna Beecher's children. 

The mother's place in the household was assumed by a 
sister of his father, Esther Beecher, " who measured out 
the things of this life as conscientiously and accurately 
as if they were the outer court service of the temple 
in which her inner soul devoutly adored." The father, 
who was a vigorous, earnest thinker and preacher, was 
absorbed by his theological studies and pastoral duties, 
and devoted little attention to the younger children. In 
a year he took to himself a second wife (Miss Harriet 
Porter), " a beautiful lady, very fair, with bright blue eyes 
and soft auburn hair," of whom Mr. Beecher's Friday 
night auditors have had many bright pictures. Henry is 
described in the early letters of the family as a good boy, 
a quick and apt student ; and if he was mischievous, his 
pranks were cast into the shade by those of his brother 
Charles, who was a typical small boy. 

Speaking of the step-mother, " who took the station of 
mother" to the infant, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, in 
the work referred to, observes that she " was a lady of 
great personal elegance and attractiveness, of high intel- 
lectual and moral culture, who, from having been in early 
life the much admired belle in general society, came at 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 45 

last, from an impulse of moral heroism combined with 
personal attachment, to undertake the austere labors 
of a poor minister's family. She was a person to make 
a deep impression on the minds of any children. There 
was a moral force about her, a dignity of demeanor, an 
air of elegance and superior breeding, which produced a 
constant atmosphere of unconscious awe in the minds of 
the little ones. Then her duties were onerous, her con- 
science inflexible, and under the weight of these her 
stock of health and animal spirits sunk, so that she was 
for the most part pensive and depressed. Her nature 
and habits were too refined and exacting for the bring- 
ing up of children of great animal force and vigor under 
the strain and pressure of straitened circumstances. 
The absurdities and crudenesses incident to the early 
days of such children appeared to her as serious faults, 
and weighed heavily on her conscience. The most in- 
tense positive religious and moral influence the three 
little ones of the family received was on Sunday night, 
when it was her custom to take them to her bedroom 
and read and talk and pray with them." 

The religious impressions thus early imbibed by Henry 
Ward were profound and lasting. Children had not as 
many ways of enjoying themselves as in these days of 
cheap children's books and toys, and in the stern, prac- 
tical life of New England, which only observed one feast 
day — Thanksgiving Day — there was little to interest 



46 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

growing children. Mrs. Beecher Stowe states that " the 
childhood of Henry Ward Beecher was unmarked by 
the possession of a single child's toy as a gift from any 
older person, or a single fete? 

He was early called upon to assume a portion of the 
domestic routine : he had to care for the domestic ani- 
mals, to cut and pile wood for the household use, to 
work in the garden, and so formed the magnificent 
physique and healthy as well as industrious habits which 
distinguished him through life. He grew up a rugged, 
healthy boy. The long and severe winters characteristic 
of the mountainous region of Litchfield necessitated the 
hardships usually associated with the primitive border 
towns. 

The severe winters occasioned the water-droughts so 
frequent in New England towns. One of his duties, in 
his ninth year, was to harness the horse to a sledge con- 
taining a barrel and go to a spring three miles away, on 
the town hill, to obtain water for household use. He 
would fill the barrel by the slow process of dipping the 
water from the spring. His robust vigor enabled him to 
endure the cold without wearing an overcoat, and one of 
his first trials in life was in being compelled by his step- 
mother to wear one. He had determined not to wear an 
overcoat the winter through, but he reluctantly obeyed 
his step-mother. 

He attended a primary school kept in the village by 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 47 

the Widow Kilbourn, on West Street. Here he learned 
the alphabet, saying his letters twice a day, and was kept 
out of the mischief incidental to childhood and conse- 
quent annoyance to those at home by the hours of at- 
tendance. He wore his hair, then of a golden hue, in 
long curls. One day some mischievous girls sawed off, 
with tin shears formed from fragments obtained from a 
shop near by, some of his golden curls, and on his step- 
mother discovering the fact, she had his curls cut short, 
greatly to his joy, as he thought they made him look like 
a girl. 

A district school was opened near the parsonage about 
the time he had mastered the alphabet and rudimentary 
spelling, and he was removed from the Widow Kilbourn 's 
and sent there. Here a school-mistress who did not 
hesitate to use the birch presided over a large attendance 
of the children of the surrounding farming population, 
and imparted elementary instruction in ciphering and 
writing, with daily readings of the Bible and the " Co- 
lumbian Orator," then a sort of classic in the schools. 
Henry Ward was not a bright pupil. His verbal memory 
was deficient, he was extremely diffident and sensitive, 
and his utterance, so eloquent in later life, was thick and 
indistinct, because of an enlargement of the tonsils of the 
throat. Indeed, he never at this time articulated dis- 
tinctly, and his aunt used to have to make him repeat a 
message several times before she could comprehend him. 



48 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

He experienced great difficulty in committing the 
catechism to memory, and every Sunday morning he 
was in trouble in consequence. With his hearty health 
and temperament these passing troubles sat lightly upon 
him, and none of them bothered themselves much about 
him, since he was never sick, and his father was engrossed 
by his pastoral duties, and all his paternal hopes were 
centred in the elder brother, who was now attending 
college. 

In his tenth year, having graduated from the district 
school — a poor writer and a miserable speller — he was 
sent by his father to a private school kept by the Rev. 
Mr. Langdon at Bethlehem, a neighboring town, to 
enter upon a more elaborate system of preparatory 
studies. 

An incident of his admission to the Rev. Mr. Langdon's 
school may be narrated as the indication that even at 
this early age he had the courage to defend his convic- 
tions. One of the older boys in the school obtained pos- 
session of a copy of Paine's " Age of Reason," and was 
in the habit of quoting therefrom in arguments against 
the Bible, which the others did not consider themselves 
able to refute. Young Beecher found it necessary to 
prepare for engaging in the controversy which he pro- 
posed to himself to wage in defence of the Bible. He 
had recourse to Watson's "Apology," which he studied 
in private. When thoroughly ready he challenged the 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 49 

champion of Paine to a debate before their respective fol- 
lowers. He completely vanquished the elder boy. His 
victory was acknowledged by all, and has never been 
questioned. 

He was not the student, however, that the incident 
would indicate. He was more partial to gunning in the 
surrounding woods than to his books. It is related that 
in his studious observations of the trees and the leaves, 
and the habits of their feathery inhabitants, he seldom 
shot anything with the gun he carried on .his shoulder. 
Generally unprepared in his studies, he adopted all the 
usual school-boy ruses to escape punishment, by reading 
answers surreptitiously from his hat, or accepting sly 
assistance from his more studious comrades, always ready 
and willing to help the good-natured and amusing lag- 
gard. He remained a year with the Rev. Mr. Langdon 
without making any recognizable progress in his book- 
studies. 

In 1823 Miss Catherine Beecherwent to Hartford and 
established a select school for girls, with her sister Har- 
riet, then twelve years old, as a pupil as well as as- 
sistant. She commenced the Latin grammar only a 
fortnight before she began to teach it herself. Her 
brother, Edward Beecher, was at this time at the head 
of the Hartford Latin School, and boarded in the same 
family with his sisters, and she studied with him while 
she taught her pupils. Surrounded by young life, en- 



50 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

thusiastic in study and teaching, Miss Beecher recovered 
that buoyant cheerfulness which always characterized 
her. 

She was at this time in her twenty-third year, and had 
a ready sympathy with all the feelings of the young ; she 
encouraged her scholars to talk freely with her of the 
subjects they studied, and the recitation hours were 
often enlivened by wit and pleasantry. She had under 
her care some of the brightest and most receptive of 
minds, and the results, as shown in the yearly exhibi- 
tions, to which the parents and friends were invited, were 
quite exciting. Latin and English compositions — versi- 
fied translations from Virgil's " Eclogues," and Ovid's 
" Metamorphoses " — astonished those who had not been 
in the habit of expecting such things in a female school. 
The school increased rapidly; pupils were drawn in from 
abroad, and it became difficult to find a place to con- 
tain the numbers to be taught. The father, in sending 
his daughter Harriet, concluded to also place Henry 
under the tutelage of his elder sister, probably wishing to 
keep the family as united as possible — and here, near by 
to the nest, could be four of the brood. Between the two^ 
youngsters, Miss Catherine and Mr. Edward must have 
had considerable trouble. Rose Terry Cooke, in her in- 
teresting account of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, says : 

" To this sister's care and teaching Harriet, now twelve 
years old, was confided. No more scrambles now over 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 5 1 

hill and dale after huckleberries or honeysuckle apples ; 
no more nutting frolics or fishing excursions to Bantam 
Pond; apple-cuttings, wood-spells, strawberry-hunts, and 
expeditions after winter-green were all over; she must 
' buckle-down ' now to serious work without these alle- 
viations ; and besides her own studies she taught Latin 
and translated Virgil into English heroic verse, becoming 
in due time an assistant pupil in the school then and still 
known as the Hartford Female Seminary, and flourish- 
ing for many years after Miss Beecher left it under the 
rule of the same John P. Brace who was previously her 
teacher." 

Henry did not achieve any better record for scholar- 
ship under his sister's tuition than he had at the Rev. 
Mr. Langdon's schools. His sisters must have had a 
troublesome time with him, as he was more given to prac- 
tical joking than to study. It is related that one rainy 
day he opened and placed the umbrellas belonging to the 
girls in a row, one above the other, on the stairs leading 
up to the school-room, in an upper story of the house, 
so that when the door opened all were precipitated into 
the street, to the dismay of the new arrival and the mer- 
riment of the school. 

There were two divisions in grammar, with leaders, 
who would select their sides and engage in a competitive 
review. Henry was so deficient in his knowledge of 
grammar that he was always the last chosen — Hobson's 



52 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

choice, in fact. Mrs. Stowe describes one of these occa- 
sions : 

" The fair leader on one of these divisions took the boy 
aside to a private apartment, to put into him, with female 
tact and insinuation, those definitions and distinctions on 
which the honor of the class depended. 

" ' Now, Henry, A is the definite article, you see, and 
must be used only with a singular noun. You can say 
a man — but you can't say a men, can you ? ' 

" ' Yes, I can say Amen, too,' was the ready rejoinder. 
' Father says it always at the end of his prayers.' 

" ' Come, Henry, now don't be joking ; now decline 
He.' 

" ' Nominative he, possessive his, objective him.' 

" ' You see, His is possessive. Now you can say His 
book — but you can't say Him book.' 

" ' Yes, I do say Hymn book too,' said the impracti- 
cable scholar, with a quizzical twinkle. Each one of these 
sallies made his young teacher laugh, which was the vic- 
tory he wanted. 

" ' But now, Henry, seriously, just attend to the active 
and passive voice. Now, " I strike " is active, you see, 
because if you strike you do something. But " I am 
struck " is passive, because if you are struck you don't do 
anything, do you ? ' 

" ' Yes, I do — I strike back again.' " 

Mrs. Stowe also relates : 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 53 

" Being of a somewhat frisky nature, his sister appoint- 
ed his seat at her elbow when she heard her classes. A 
class in Natural Philosophy, not very well prepared, was 
stumbling through the theory of the tides. 

" ' I can explain that,' said Henry. ' Well, you see 
the sun, he catches hold of the moon and pulls her, and 
she catches hold of the sea and pulls that, and this 
makes the spring tides.' 

" ' But what makes the neap tides ? ' 

" ' Oh, that's when the sun stops to spit on his hands,' 
was the brisk rejoinder." 

Henry was sent back home after a six months' sojourn 
with his sister, probably as a hopeless case. Miss 
Beecher continued her school, and became a resident. 
Miss Beecher had always enjoyed the friendship of the 
leading ladies of Hartford, and when at the end of four 
years she drew the plan of the Hartford Female Sem- 
inary, it was by their influence that the first gentlemen . 
in Hartford subscribed money to purchase the land and 
erect such a building as she desired, with a large hall for 
study and general exercises, eight recitation-rooms, and 
a room for chemical laboratory and lectures. A band 
of eight teachers, each devoted to some particular de- 
partment, carried on the course of study. 

In a recent interview Rev. Edward Beecher told the 
following incident about Henry's boyhood : 

He was always of an impulsive, warm-hearted, imagi- 



54 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

native nature, and very ambitious. He would excel his 
comrades if he could, and especially so in athletic sports. 

He said that one day young Henry was playing " fol- 
low the leader." As usual he was the leader. He ran 
at breakneck speed toward the river, jumping posts and 
turning somersaults, which every urchin in the line had 
to imitate. When he reached the river he jumped from 
the dock to a vessel that was moored a few feet off, but 
all the boys followed him. He climbed the rigging and 
slid down ropes, but his playmates still succeeded in 
imitating him. He ran out on the bowsprit, but the 
boys followed. 

" Harry would not let them equal him," said his broth- 
er, who is ten years his senior. " And what did that hot- 
headed boy do but jump right into the water, where he 
almost drowned. The other boys admitted that they 
were beaten." 

Mr. Edward Beecher said that his brother's athletic 
tendencies were confined to healthy and manly out-door 
sports. He was no hand for exercising in a gymnasium. 
He had a strong constitution and was built like an 
athlete. 

" What was Mr. Beecher's position on the temperance 
question ? " 

" He believed that for a man to deny himself the use 
of wines or spirits for the sake of a weaker friend was 
praiseworthy and even admirable. But provided the 



HIS BIRTH AND BOYHOOD. 55 

wine was genuine and good, he did not believe it wrong 
for a man to drink a glass now and then." 

Mr. Edward Beecher said that Henry Ward was the 
one of his brothers with whom he was least acquainted. 
William and Thomas K. were nearer his own age. 
Charles, Henry's next youngest brother, he had fitted 
for college. But as for Henry himself, he was of an in- 
dependent turn, and studied only such courses as he fan- 
cied, or thought would increase his power as an orator. 
He saw his brother but little after he was seventeen 
years old. 



CHAPTER III. 

HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 

Litchfield Scenery. — Atmosphere breathed by the Youth. — His Father 
removes to Boston. — Ambitious to become a Sailor. — Youthful 
Dreams. — Boston Latin School. — Mount Pleasant College. — Meets 
Miss Bullard. — His Methods of Study. — Learning Elocution. — Study- 
ing Mathematics. — Interested in Phrenology. — Teaching in the Win- 
ter Vacation. — Decides to become a Minister. — Graduates from Am- 
herst. — Lane Theological Seminary. — Editorial Work. — Graduates, 
and resolves to Marry. 

The scenery surrounding the Litchfield home made 
nature a great school-teacher. The round, blue 'head of 
Mount Tom marked the far-off horizon, and through a 
sea of distant pine-groves the two sheets of water known 
as the Great and Little Ponds gleamed out. It was the 
village habit then to love and notice nature — the influ- 
ence of the wonderful sunsets, that Mrs. Stowe says 
" used to burn themselves out amid voluminous wreath- 
ings or castellated turrets of clouds — vaporous pageantry 
proper to a mountainous region." With but few books 
within reach, and only the church for mental diversion, 
Henry Ward Beecher, as a boy, opened his mind to the 
fullest extent to the beauties of nature. His eye was 
educated in color by the changes of the verdure from the 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 5/ 

tints of spring green that, after a long winter, spread over 
the rich growth of forest trees on the uplands into the 
deepening hues of summer, and then into a blaze of 
glory in autumn. He gathered the pink-shell blossoms 
of trailing arbutus in the woods, and picked violets that 
were blue, and white, and yellow, and hunted for wild 
anemone, crow's-foot, and blood-root. The memory of 
those sylvan rambles, and his walks along the tangled 
and rocky banks of the clear Bantam River, colored 
many of his utterances in later years. He and his imag- 
inative sister, Mrs. Stowe, used to speculate whether in 
the distant northern groves there were altars to Apollo, 
where white-robed shepherds played on ivory flutes, and 
shepherdesses brought garlands to hang around the 
shrines. Mr. Beecher gained an education in those pas- 
toral scenes that never failed to be a resource to him. 

The exuberance of spirit of Lyman Beecher kept the 
family oh the qui vive and influenced all the children. He 
would teach his boys theology as they caught perch and 
pickerel, literature as they gathered sweet-flag or winter- 
green, mythology as they cut up apples before a blazing 
fire to make the annual barrel of cider-apple sauce, and 
as they piled up wood he related tales from Walter Scott. 
There was hardly a bound to Lyman Beecher's mental 
energy. He wanted to see Byron and give him his views 
of religious thought, and help him out of his troubles. 
He had intense admiration for Napoleon Bonaparte, and 



58 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

wanted him to succeed, and when Napoleon was at St. 
Helena, Lyman Beecher was greatly exercised about the 
condition of the emperor's soul. The descendants of 
Lyman Beecher were strongly marked with this desire 
for regulating the affairs of the universe, for whose proper 
conduct they seemed to have a sense of responsibility. 

Mr. Beecher learned music at home, for his sisters 
played upon the piano, his father performed upon the 
violin, and his brothers, Edward and William, played the 
flute. It delighted the boys when Lyman Beecher tuned 
his old violin for the contra-dance, "Go to the Devil 
and Shake Yourself," and although he tried hard to mas- 
ter "Money Musk," and " College Hornpipe," he invari- 
ably broke away into " Bonnie Doon," and " Mary's 
Dream," in playing which he was proficient. 

Henry Ward did not remain long in the mountain 
home of his birth, but was soon after his return from 
Hartford taken to Boston by the removal of his father 
to that city. 

In 1826, Rev. Lyman Beecher, after a long and anx- 
ious self-communing, made up his mind that he had no 
right to live longer in debt for want of a sufficient salary. 
It has always been the disgrace of New England that her 
country ministers have had to starve or accept charity. 
Many of them have been forced to eke out the pittance 
allotted to them by farming on week-days instead of 
studying, or by writing school-books or compiling histo- 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 59 

ries, or in later days taking agencies for popular articles. 
But none of these things were available to Mr. Beecher ; 
he believed it his duty to devote all his time and strength, 
just as far as it could be spared from the absolute needs 
of rest or relaxation, to the work of the ministry ; and 
the father of eleven children could not, in any case, have 
provided that hearty and hungry flock with food and 
clothing for $800 a year. 

He took no counsel of man, but in the silence of his 
study made up his mind to leave Litchfield as soon as 
he could find a more remunerative parish, and twelve 
hours after a letter reached him, inviting him to the 
Hanover Street Church, Boston, Mass. 

Henry, in his twelfth year, did not enjoy the change 
from the freedom of the country and the panorama of 
nature to the closely built and populous city of Boston, 
where his father took him as well as his youngest 
brother ; he would have preferred the country to the 
city, but he had no choice. 

He was sent to the Boston Latin School, and for a 
time applied himself diligently to his studies. Accord- 
ing to Mrs. Stowe, " he grew gloomy and moody, rest- 
less and irritable," and his father arranged for him a 
course of biographical reading — the voyages of Captain 
Cook and the life of Nelson — and the youthful student 
became ambitious of an active life of enterprise and ad- 
venture. He wanted to go to sea. 



60 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mrs. Stowe says : " He made up his little bundle, 
walked to the wharf and talked with sailors and cap- 
tains, hovered irresolute on the verge of voyages, 
never quite able to grieve his father by a sudden depart- 
ure. At last he wrote a letter announcing to a brother 
that he could and would remain no longer at school — 
that he had made up his mind for the sea ; that if not 
permitted to go, he should go without permission. This 
letter was designedly dropped where his father picked 
it up. Dr. Beecher put it in his pocket and said nothing 
for the moment, but the next day asked Henry to help 
him saw wood. Now the wood-pile was the doctor's 
private debating-ground, and Henry felt complimented 
by the invitation, as implying manly companionship." 

Mrs. Stowe continues the narrative of a very important 
point in the subsequent career of her illustrious brother : 

" Let us see," says the doctor ; " Henry, how old are 
you ? " 

" Almost fourteen ! " 

" Bless me ! how boys do grow ! Why, it's almost 
time to be thinking what you are going to do. Have 
you ever thought ? " 

" Yes — I want to go to sea." 

" To sea ! Of all things. Well, well ! after all, why 
not ? — of course you don't want to be a common sailor ? 
You want to get into the navy ? " 

" Yes, sir, that's what I want." 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 63 

" But not merely as a common sailor, I suppose ? " 

" No, sir, I want to be a midshipman, and after that 
commodore." 

" I see,'' said the doctor, cheerfully. 

" Well, Henry, in order for that, you know, you must 
begin a course of mathematics, and study navigation and 
all that." 

" Yes, sir, I am ready." 

" Well, then, I'll send you up to Amherst next week, 
to Mount Pleasant, and there you'll begin your prepara- 
tory studies, and if you are well prepared, I promise I can 
make interest to get you an appointment." 

And so he went to Mount Pleasant, in Amherst, Mass., 
and Dr. Beecher said, shrewdly : " I shall have that boy 
in the ministry yet." 

At Amherst Henry Ward labored perseveringly, with 
his face toward the navy, but at the close of the year he 
became impressed at a religious revival, and his scheme 
of sailing the blue ocean vanished. He entered into the 
study of English classics with zeal, and he pondered the 
works of the best English writers with never-ceasing de- 
light, but he was not attracted by Greek or Latin classics 
or mathematics. He then became a reformer, opposed 
all of the habitual irregularities and dissipations of stu- 
dents, and set his face against the use of tobacco and 
liquors. His father's eccentricities began to crop out in his 
student life. His lack of order was conspicuous, but he 



64 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

always claimed that there was as much method in his 
disorder as in the regular habits of his more methodical 
comrades. He tossed books, papers, memoranda, boots, 
and articles of clothing in one corner of his room, and 
when in search of anything he got down on his knees and 
pawed over the mass. He had a circular table made, 
with a hole large enough in the centre to admit his body. 
He sat on a low stool with a turning top, with his head 
and half of his body through the hole in the table, and 
when he changed from one work to another he would 
spin around on the stool and thus bring himself to an- 
other part of the table. He was a poor student in 
mathematics, and finished this part of his course with 
difficulty. During two winter vacations he taught school 
in Whitinsville, using the money thus obtained for the 
purchase of a library. 

He had pursued a course of elocution under Professor 
John E. Lovell, who succeeded in developing his voice, 
naturally thick and husky, and at the close of the first 
year he was recognized as an attractive and fluent speaker. 

In the Christian Union of July 14, 1880, Mr. Beecher 
wrote : 

" I had from childhood a thickness of speech arising 
from a large palate, so that when a boy I used to be 
laughed at for talking as if I had pudding in my mouth. 
When I went to Amherst, I was fortunate in passing into 
the hands of John Lovell, a teacher of elocution ; and a 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 65 

better teacher for my purpose I cannot conceive. His 
system consisted in drill, or the thorough practice of in- 
flections by the voice, of gesture, posture, and articula- 
tion. Sometimes I was a whole hour practising my 
voice on a word like 'justice.' 

" I would have to take a posture, frequently at a mark 
chalked on the floor. Then we would go through all the 
gestures, exercising each movement of the arm, and the 
throwing open the hand. All gestures except those of 
precision go in curves, the arm rising from the side, com- 
ing to the front, turning to the left ' or right. I was 
drilled as to how far the arm should come forward, where 
it should start from, how far go back, and under what 
circumstances these movements should be made. It was 
drill, drill, drill, until the motions almost became a sec- 
ond nature. Now I never know what movement I shall 
make. My gestures are natural, because this drill made 
them natural to me. The only method of acquiring an 
effective education is by practice of not less than an hour 
a day, until the student has his voice and himself thor- 
oughly subdued, and trained to right expression." 

There was a religious revival in the school, and Henry 
took a prominent part, always being imbued with a 
strong religious sentiment, the result of his early home 
training. Going to Boston shortly afterward, at his 
father's request, to attend a great communion season, 
Henry avowed, to the joy of all, his intention of becom- 



66 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ing a minister of the Gospel. Returning to Amherst, 
he continued his academical studies three years longer, 
for the purpose of entering college. He was assisted 
greatly in his mathematical studies by his teacher and 
room-mate, a young man from West Point, named Fitz- 
gerald, whom he ever pleasantly remembered. He was 
prepared to enter as a sophomore, but his father decided he 
should enter as a freshman. He now became a hard stu- 
dent, devoting himself especially to the English classics, 
and carefully developing his powers as an orator. In all 
debates he always took the part of a reformer, and al- 
ways espoused the side of law and order. He was active 
in founding a society which should cultivate merriment 
and fun, but which should condemn and discountenance 
" scraping" in the lecture-rooms, hazing of students, every 
form of secret vice, gambling and drinking, and encourage 
temperance and purity of character. He became much 
interested in phrenology and physiology, and Mr. Fowler, 
since famous as the senior member of the firm of Fowler 
& Wells, was a fellow-student. This led to his studying 
Combe, Spurzheim, and the Scotch metaphysical school. 
The subject of phrenology, which he never considered 
a perfected science, always possessed an interest for him. 
He obtained the money to purchase the books his studies 
and inclinations led him to read by teaching rural schools 
during the long winter vacations, like many others in 
his class. Graduating from Amherst in 1834, he went 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 6j 

to Cincinnati to his father, who was then president of 
Lane Theological Seminary, to complete his theological 
training. The abolition excitement at Lane Seminary 
resulted in the departure of a whole class of thirty stu- 
dents, and there was a great theological conflict waging 
in the institution of learning. Henry joined his father 
in the battle, developing the originality and independence 
of views that always characterized him. Cincinnati, re- 
moved from slave territory only by the width of the 
Ohio River, was convulsed with the contest between the 
slave-holders and Abolitionists. Steamboats, the decks 
of which were covered with chained gangs of slaves, 
passed daily by the wharves, while the Ohio River, 
where it passed between slave and free territory, was 
lined with the headquarters of Abolitionist societies 
bent on aiding slaves to escape. The air was electrical 
with excitement, and the young man, thrilling at the 
prospect of the coming fight, felt his ardor redoubled 
before the obstacles and opposition that confronted all 
Abolitionists. In 1836 he appeared first publicly as the 
champion of the anti-slavery cause. The utterances of 
The Philanthropist, an anti-slavery paper in Cincinnati, 
edited by James G. Birney, a slave-holder who had 
emancipated his slaves, became offensive to the strong 
pro-slavery element. A riot broke out, and for a week 
Cincinnati was overrun by a mob headed by Kentucky 
slave-holders. Young Beecher asked to be sworn in as 



68 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

one of the special policemen, and armed with a pistol 
patrolled the streets. At this time, in the absence of 
Mr. Brainard, he was for a few months occupying the 
editorial chair in the office of the Cincinnati Journal, the 
organ of the New School Presbyterian Church, and his 
indignation over the Birney riot found vent in some 
pungent editorials which produced a marked effect. 

While at Cincinnati he formed an intimacy with Pro- 
fessor C. E. Stowe, who afterward married his sister Har- 
riet, who had left Hartford and now resided with her fa- 
ther. Upon finishing his studies in 1 836, he started to New 
England to marry Miss Eunice Bullard. When his father 
remonstrated with him for marrying so young, he said : 

" I will marry her if we have only the north side of a 
corn-cob to live on." 

Miss Bullard was the sister of Asa Bullard, of West 
Sutton, Mass., who was a fellow-student of Mr. Beecher's 
at Amherst College, and it was during his collegiate 
career that the future pastor of Plymouth first met the 
lady during a vacation which he spent at her father's 
residence. Dr. Bullard had a large family of grown-up 
children. He was a man of some wealth, and the most 
prominent member of the most prominent church in the 
place — the Congregationalist. All his children had taken 
an active part in church work, and three of his sons were 
studying for the ministry, while another was the super- 
intendent of the Sunday-school. 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. 69 

The child that attracted the young guest most, how- 
ever, was Eunice White Bul.lard, who was of a shy, re- 
tiring disposition, but a girl of quick intellect and rogu- 
ish eyes. He was eighteen years of age, one year older 
than the girl. She was a teacher in the day-schools, in 
the Sunday-schools, and had a class at the mission. It 
was a case of love at first sight, but it was not until 
seven years had passed that the two were made one. 

Mrs. Beecher has always been a thorough help to her 
husband in church work, and to her, perhaps, he owes 
more than is generally conceded. She made warm 
friends, especially among the ladies of the church, She 
has been, since January, 1885, the president of the 
Woman's Sewing Society of Plymouth Church. 

Like her husband, she was fond of literary pursuits. 
Among her works may be mentioned " Motherly Talks 
with Young House-keepers," " Plymouth Church Fair 
Cook Book," and " From Dawn to Daylight." This last 
is biographical in character, and describes her own and 
Mr. Beecher's courtship and wedding. During the re- 
cent tour of Mr. and Mrs. Beecher abroad, she contrib- 
uted a number of highly interesting letters to the Brook- 
lyn Magazine. 

Amherst never lost its hold on Mr. Beecher. He was, 
in the best qualities pertaining to the character, a thor- 
ough " college man." When the Alpha Delta Phi Society, 
at its convention held at Brown University, some years 



70 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ago, elected him an honorary member, he was greatly 
pleased, and afterward was^ prominent at its social re- 
unions. He was immensely popular with the under- 
graduate element, and his presence was a sure guarantee 
of a delightful occasion. One of the best impromptu 
speeches of his life was made at a fraternity dinner in 
New York. His theme was true culture and its mission. 
His audience was small, reporters were rigidly excluded, 
but he spoke from his heart, and showed plainly that 
with all his work, he had time to master and find sig- 
nificance and usefulness in matters apparently so small 
as the mysteries and formula of a college secret society. 

Eleven of his classmates still survive, among them Dr. 
Erastus E. Marcy, of this city, and the Rev. Samuel H. 
Emery, of Taunton, Mass. Amherst College conferred 
on Mr. Beecher many years ago the honorary degree of 
Doctor of Divinity, but he never used it. On the day 
after his death, Amherst College alumni living in and 
about New York met at No. 95 Nassau Street, in the 
offices of Elliot Sandford, to take action on the death of 
Mr. Beecher. Mr. Sandford presided. About twenty- 
five members of the Alumni Association were present. 
Brief speeches were made by the Rev. Dr. Cushman, of 
The Churchman, Colonel A. B. Crane, and H. L. Bridg- 
man. Dr. Cushman said that he went to college two 
years after Mr. Beecher left it. He thought Mr. Beecher 
the foremost man in America in point of pulpit and fo- 



HIS YOUTH AND COLLEGE CAREER. J I 

rensic ability. He was certainly Amherst's most distin- 
guished alumnus. The college may not always have fol- 
lowed him in his theology ; it was proud to lay some claim 
to his patriotism, his eloquence, and his philanthropy. Mr. 
Bridgman and Colonel Crane also spoke in praise of Mr. 
Beecher's character and work. A committee of four was 
appointed to draw up resolutions on Mr. Beecher's death, 
and a committee of ten to represent the Alumni Associa- 
tion at the funeral. On the first committee were the 
Rev. Dr. Cushman, Class of '40 ; Colonel Samuel J. 
Storrs, '60; Jefferson Clark, '6j, and Elliot Sandford, '61. 
On the funeral committee were ex-Congressman Waldo 
Hutchins, '42 ; the Rev. Dr. Henry M. Storrs, '45 ; Dr. 
Erastus E. Marcy, '34 (a classmate of Mr. Beecher) ; 
the Rev. Dr. Roswell D. Hitchcock, '36 ; the Rev. Dr. 
Charles H. Parkhurst, '66 ; Francis F. Marbury, '32 ; 
John S. Washburn, President of the Home Life Insur- 
ance Company, '39; the Rev. Dr. Cushman, W. W. 
Goodrich, '52, and Elliot Sandford. President Seelye, 
of Amherst, sent word that he would come down to rep- 
resent the college at the funeral. Steps have been taken 
by several wealthy alumni toward endowing a professor- 
ship in Amherst to be named in honor of Mr. Beecher. 

Henry Ward Beecher preached his first sermon, if we 
may believe the traditions of the place, at Batavia, O., in 
1835. His brother George was pastor of the church at 
Batavia, at the time, and Henry Ward, who was not yet 



J 2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ordained, passed a part of a vacation there. The young 
pastor was indisposed one Sunday and invited his brother 
to fill the pulpit. The request was complied with, and 
the congregation was very much pleased with the ser- 
mon that was preached. Henry Ward Beecher was but 
twenty-two years of age then, and there are old residents 
of Batavia who still remember the young man's bright, 
boyish face, his sweet, resonant voice, and the earnest- 
ness and enthusiasm of his manner. The old church has 
for many years now been a livery stable, and perhaps 
it has been torn down by this time. 

George Beecher's career was closed while still a young 
man. He was passionately fond of shooting, and one day, 
when out on an expedition of this sort, he blew into his 
loaded gun, which was discharged, and he was instantly 
killed. 

It was held by many who knew both brothers that 
George Beecher, had he lived, would have developed 
greater power as a preacher than Henry Ward. 



CHAPTER IV. 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 

He Marries and Moves West. — Locates at Lawrenceburg, Ind. — An Arca- 
dian Life. — Gardening. — Missionaiy Work. — Editorial Work. — Ac- 
tive in Revivals. — Hardships of Western Life. — The Pastorate at 
Indianapolis. — The West Country. — Some Anecdotes. — His Fame 
Spreads. — His First Address in New York. — The Foreign Missionary 
Society. — Henry C. Bowen hears Him. — He receives an Offer 
from Plymouth Church. — He accepts the Position at $1,500 per 
Annum. 

Mr. Beecher, as related in the previous chapter, first 
saw the lady he married some seven years previously, 
when he entered Amherst College. The lovers were en- 
gaged seven years, not being married until 1837. Mr. 
and Mrs. Beecher had ten children, of whom only four 
are living, one daughter and three sons. The daughter, 
who is the eldest of the four, is the wife of the Rev. 
Samuel Scoville, of Stamford, Conn. Mr. Beecher's eld- 
est son, Colonel Henry Barton Beecher, is a well-known 
insurance man in Brooklyn. Major William C. Beecher 
is a lawyer, and the youngest, Herbert Beecher, was 
appointed Collector of Customs at Portland, Ore., by 
President Cleveland in 1885, but a year later the Senate 
rejected his nomination, after which he was given another 



74 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

office in the Northwest. His home is at Seattle, Wash. 
Territory. 

In 1837, after his marriage, he became pastor of a Pres- 
byterian Church at Lawrenceburg, Ind., and in 1839 he 
went to Indianapolis. He loved his Western work, and 
in all the enthusiasm of youth he labored for his peo- 
ple. He did much manual labor about his house, 
chopped wood, raised flowers, pruned trees, hoed his own 
garden, swept his own church, drove nails and put in 
glass, built fires, and rang the bell for the services. His 
first converts were two domestics, who remained after 
one of his prayer meetings. He afterward said that there 
was a strong " dish-watery " odor about them, and he was 
tempted to dismiss them with his blessing ; but he con- 
cluded it would not do to be fastidious, and he got upon 
his knees along-side of them. Speaking of this period of 
his life, his sister says : 

" His life was of an arcadian simplicity. He inhabited 
a cottage on the outskirts of the town, where he cultivat- 
ed a garden, and gathered around him horse, cow, and 
pig — all the wholesome suite of domestic animals which 
he had been accustomed to care for in early life. He 
was an enthusiast on all these matters, fastidious about 
breeds and bloods, and each domestic animal was a pet, 
and received his own personal attentions. In the note- 
books of this period, amid hints for sermons, come mem- 
oranda respecting his favorite Berkshire pig or Durham 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 7$ 

cow. He read on gardening, farming, and stock-raising, 
all that he could lay hands on ; he imported from Eastern 
cultivators all sorts of roses and all sorts of pear-trees 
and grape-vines, and edited an horticultural paper, which 
had quite a circulation. ... In his theological stud- 
ies he had but two volumes — the Bible and human nat- 
ure — which he held to be indispensable to the under- 
standing each of the other." 

Three months of each year he devoted to missionary 
work through the State, travelling from place to place on 
horseback, and preaching every day. He did not, how- 
ever, receive any popular recognition until about the third 
year of his ministry, when there was a great revival of re- 
ligion at Terre Haute, which was followed by a series 
of revivals throughout the State, in which he became ac- 
tively engaged. He preached not only religion from the 
Bible, but inveighed against intemperance, and became a 
recognized power and leader. His style was bold and 
original, and at once attracted attention and occasional 
comment, though the reporter was not about in those 
days to scatter a man's speeches and fame over the land. 
His revival work created a sensation in the Western 
country, and especially in Indianapolis, where he was 
located from 1839 to 1845. While pastor of the Second 
Presbyterian Church he created a sensation by declar- 
ing, in three distinct and powerful sermons, slavery to be 
an institution in defiance of the laws of God, and an 



?6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

outrage upon the rights of man, showing thus early in 
his career his inclination to find his themes in contem- 
poraneous events and affairs rather than in the history of 
the past. 

Alluding to his experiences in Indianapolis, a history 
of the church by a member says : 

" In the early spring of 1842 a revival began, more no- 
ticeable, perhaps, than any that this church or this com- 
munity has seen. The whole town was pervaded by the 
influences of religion. For many weeks the work con- 
tinued with unabated power, and at three commun- 
ion seasons, held successively in February, March, and 
April, 1842, nearly one hundred persons were added to 
the church on profession of their faith. This was God's 
work. It is not improper, however, to speak of the pas- 
tor in that revival, as he is remembered by some of his 
congregation, plunging through the wet streets, his trou- 
sers stuffed in his muddy boot-legs, earnest, untiring, 
swift, with a merry heart, a glowing face, and a help- 
ful word for everyone ; the whole day preaching Christ 
to the people where he could find them, and at night 
still preaching where the people could easily find him. 
It is true that in this revival some wood and hay and 
stubble were gathered with the gold and silver and pre- 
cious stones. As in all new communities, there was spe- 
cial danger of unhealthy excitement. But in general the 
results were most happy for the church and for the town. 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. JJ 

Some of those who have been pillars since, found the 
Saviour in that memorable time. Nor was the awaken- 
ing succeeded by an immediate relapse. 

" Early in the following year, at the March and April 
communions, the church had large accessions, and it had 
also in 1845. There was, indeed, a wholesome and nearly 
continuous growth, up to the time when the first pastor 
resigned, to accept a call to the Plymouth Congregational 
Church, in Brooklyn, N. Y. This occurred August 24, 
1847, and on the nineteenth of the following month Mr. 
Beecher's labors for the congregation ceased. 

" The pastorate thus terminated had extended through 
more than eight years. During this time much had been 
accomplished. The society had built a pleasant house of 
worship. The membership had advanced from thirty-two 
to two hundred and seventy-five. What was considered 
a doubtful enterprise, inaugurated as it had been amid 
many prophecies of failure, had risen to an enviable posi- 
tion, not only in the capital, but in the State. The at- 
tachment between the pastor and the people had become 
peculiarly strong. Mutual toils and sufferings and suc- 
cesses had bound them fast together. Only the demands 
of a wider field making duty plain divided them, and a re- 
cent letter proves that the pastor's early charge still keeps 
its hold upon his heart. It is not to be wondered at that 
the few of his flock who yet remain among us always speak 
of ' Henry ' with beaming eyes and mellowed voices," 



78 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Another writer says upon this subject : 

" In the two years of his Lawrenceburg pastorate Mr. 
Beecher made his mark. As a preacher he was eloquent ; 
as an orthodox teacher he was not over-zealous ; as a 
sympathizing pastor he was of average merit only. His 
meetings were well attended, and he made himself felt. 
His personal magnetism was great, the flush of vigorous 
health was in his veins, and he stirred up the dry bones 
of his neighborhood to such a degree that the attention 
of a wider circle was attracted, and he was called to take 
charge of a similar church in Indianapolis, the capital of 
the State. Here he narrowly escaped being switched off 
on another and very different track. A new railroad was 
projected, and a superintendent was to be chosen. A 
bank president who was one of the chief directors had 
been greatly affected by the go-ahead manner and zeal 
of the young parson, and concluding that he was pos- 
sessed of the qualities that would make him a first-rate 
railroad official, proposed his name. The contest was 
close ; Beecher lost by one vote — and thus the railroad 
interest of the West was spared the disgrace of pulling 
from the American platform the man who has done the 
most to make that platform famous. 

" In Indianapolis young Beecher made friends in several 
new circles. His church was small, and his ministrations 
at first were held in a room in the second story of the 
town academy. As the son of Lyman Beecher he was 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 79 

accorded a courteous welcome, but it was not long ere 
he was esteemed and appreciated for his individual merit. 
Here, too, in a sense, he began to live. Hitherto he had 
been little better than a home missionary, and, indeed, he 
was for some time a beneficiary on the books of the 
Home Missionary Society. His entire income was less 
than three hundred dollars nominally, and part of that 
was paid in corn, potatoes, and other products of the soil. 
When he needed a house to live in, he hauled the logs 
himself. His neighbors aided him to put it up. The 
whitewash and paint he attended to himself. The rapid- 
ity with which his children followed one another, and the 
malarial condition of the section in which he lived, broke 
down the strong constitution of his faithful wife, and as 
they were unable to pay a servant, threw on him the do- 
mestic drudgery. He chopped the wood, drew the water, 
peeled the potatoes, cooked the food, served it, washed the 
dishes, and cleaned up the house. When sickness neces- 
sitated frequent washings of soiled clothes it was he who 
did the work. Part of the time he did double duty, and 
rode twenty miles through the woods and across the 
prairies to the log school-house in which service was held, 
preached, rode back again, cooked the dinner, preached 
in his own church, returned to nurse his sick wife and at- 
tend to the children, got the supper, and spent the even- 
ing in the prayer-meeting. At times he was so poor that 
an unpaid letter, on which eighteen or twenty cents were 



80 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

due, remained in the post-office, with news from the 
East, uncalled for, because he did not have the money 
with which to pay the postage. 

" Added to the poverty of his pocket, the incessant 
drain of his sympathy at home, the continuous necessity 
of physical toil in the house, the garden, and the wood- 
shed, and the preparation of his sermons, was a doubt, 
an uncertainty in his beliefs. The little cloud, small as 
a man's hand, that frightened him when a boy, made 
him gloomy when in college, and shadowed him in his 
first charge, now assumed vast proportions. He was all 
afloat. All that kept him from sinking — humanly speak- 
ing — was his own honest expression of doubt. Had he 
kept it to himself and brooded over it in secret he might 
have been carried over the falls of infidelity, or gone to 
the fool's refuge — suicide. But Beecher was then, as al- 
ways, open-mouthed. What he felt, thought, or knew he 
told. Secretiveness was never fairly developed in his 
nature. He never could keep a secret. He made friends 
easily, and the last person with him invariably knew his 
mind. v He was easily deceived, for, although he had 
constant experience in human strengths and human 
weaknesses, he was by nature confiding and trustful. 
Truthful himself, it was next to impossible to persuade 
him that anyone would be false in speech or inference 
to him. He knew all about wickedness in general, but 
special cases bothered him. When doubts assailed him, 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 8 1 

instead of taking them to his study he used them as il- 
lustrations in the pulpit. If he questioned the possibil- 
ity of forgiveness of sin, he became the example. It was 
his breast that he beat, his doubt he asserted, his fears 
he expressed. In picturing the estate of a lost soul the 
imagery lost nothing of its power by a personal applica- 
tion. Enthusiastic in everything, from the culture of a 
flower to the worship of his Saviour, Mr. Beecher car- 
ried his zealous search for remedies in this state of dou'bt 
to the extremity of his passionate nature. Crowds at- 
tended his preaching. Waves of religious feeling carried 
all classes of people before them. The State of Indiana 
was in an uproar. The Presbyterian churches looked on 
amazed. Dr. Lyman Beecher thanked God that He had 
given him such a son, and in the same breath beseeched 
Him to guide him, lest he should fall. The Legisla- 
ture sat in Indianapolis, and in its train followed the 
evils that generally accompany the camp followers. 
Intemperance, gambling, and kindred vices were ram- 
pant in the place. Everybody knew it. The sores 
affected the entire body politic. The members of the 
Legislature knew it as well as the rest, and winked 
at it like the rest. This seemed to Beecher a fair 
target. He announced a series of lectures to young 
men, and delivered them in his church. The feeling 
engendered by them was intense. Those who were 
hit were indignant. All classes went to hear them, 



82 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and before they were concluded a revival arose that 
swept the city. 

"Meantime the uncertainty of young Beecher increased, 
and with it grew his power. He was maturing mentally 
and physically. His head expanded as he read the 
books of nature and of humanity all about him. He 
felt the necessity of supplementing his sparse education 
by such means as were at his disposal. Books were rare 
and costly. Newspapers were in their infancy. He 
read all that he could borrow or obtain from the public 
libraries, and felt inexpressible gratitude when the choice 
volumes of a wealthy friend were placed at his service. 
The West, and especially that section of it, was full of 
quick-witted men and growing women. Both sought 
comfort in the preaching of this man of the people. In- 
stead of scoffing at their doubts, he boldly proclaimed his 
own. This made him the friend and spokesman of the 
wavering. He pictured in vivid colors the unhappiness 
of his thoughts, the terror of his fear, and produced in 
their minds the impression that Beecher and they were 
one and the same. When he found relief they partici- 
pated in his joy. When he sung the song of salvation 
they joined in the chorus. He became immensely pop- 
ular in his parish and in the State. He was not the ideal 
parson. He wore no distinctive garb. His face was 
round and jolly. His eye was full of laughter. His 
manner was hearty and his interest sincere. 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 83 

" It was often said that Beecher could have attained any- 
desired distinction at the bar or in politics. He was im- 
portuned to stand as a candidate for legislative honors, 
but invariably refused even to think of it. At this time, 
when he regarded himself spiritually weak, he was elo- 
quently strong. He preached without notes, and talked as 
if inspired. His prayers were poems. His illustrations 
were constant and always changing. Hekept his people 
wide awake, and made them feel his earnestness. His act- 
ing power was marvellous. Those who knew him well will 
remember that when talking he could with difficulty sit 
still. He almost invariably rose, and in the excitement 
of description or argument acted the entire subject as it 
struck him. Oftentimes in his most solemn moments an 
illustration or an odd expression would escape him that 
sent a laugh from pew to pew. Waking suddenly to the 
incongruity of the scene and the subject, it almost seemed 
as if the rebuking spirit of his dead mother stood before 
him, for with a manner that carried the sympathy of the 
audience he would drift into a channel tender and deep 
and full of tears, along which the feelings of his people 
were irresistibly borne. Then as later the chief topics 
of his repertory were the love of God and the dignity of 
man. He rarely preached from the Old Testament. 
The thunders of Sinai and the flames of hell had no 
power over him. It would puzzle an expert to find in 
all his published sermons — and for more than a genera- 



84 LITE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

tion every word he spoke was reported as he spoke it — a 
sentence of which threats or fears were the dominant 
spirit. He preached the love of God and the sympathy 
of Christ first, last, and all the time. He knew the poli- 
ticians of the West thoroughly, and the gamblers, who 
were a powerful fraternity, made up their minds that it 
was folly to interfere with the robust preacher, who was 
not afraid to push their bully aside when he stood in front 
of the ballot-box, and who met them eye to eye on the 
street as well as in the pulpit. 

" While in the height of his popularity in the West he 
was hampered as few men would care to be. He was 
hungry for books and papers, but could not afford them. 
He had a royal physique, and every vein throbbed with 
superabundant health, but his home was a hospital. His 
ambition was great, but he was tied to a stake in a con- 
tracted field. He strove to live outside of himself, made 
many pastoral calls, talked with men about their business 
trials, and sympathized with women in their domestic 
woes. At his own home his hands were full. His wife 
was broken in health and discomforted in spirit. She did 
not like the West and the West was unkind to her con- 
stitution. It was a serious question whether she could 
much longer endure the strain on her physique, and this 
wore on the sympathetic nature of her husband. He was 
entirely unselfish, but the attrition of years of complaint 
worried him. He did the best, all, in fact, he could, but 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 85 

to no use. Finding himself depressed, Mr. Beecher reso- 
lutely set to work to drive his fits of despondency away. 
He became interested in trees and flowers. Aided by 
friends, he started an agricultural paper, and posted him- 
self from books on floriculture, and read the fat and prosy 
volumes of Loudon. His fresh and novel mode of treat- 
ing these subjects won him fame, but not fortune. His 
own garden gave evidence of his skill, and the fairs were 
not niggardly in premiums to the amateur gardener. 
Eight years swiftly wore away, and in the often-recurring 
excitements of revivals, public meetings, home trials, and 
personal bewilderments, the young man passed from the 
first period of his career to the second. 

" In 1 847 he was thirty-four years old. Mentally, he had 
become broader, and looked over wider fields than when 
he began to labor. Morally, he was as sincere, as truth- 
ful, and as ingenuous as when he opened his big blue eyes 
with astonishment at the Bible stories he heard at ' Aunt 
Esther's ' knee. Physically he was a picture of vigorous 
health. He stood about five feet eight inches high. His 
large, well-formed, well-developed head sat defiantly on a 
short, red neck, that grew from a sturdy frame, rampant 
and lusty in nerve and fibre and blood and muscle. 
He had no money, owned no real estate. His capital 
was in his brains, and they needed the culture procurable 
in the metropolis alone, where libraries and book stores, 
art galleries and men of thought, were to be met at every 



86 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

turn. A career in the East was far from Beecher's 
thoughts, and yet his sick wife seemed to need a medic- 
ament not to be found in the West." 

Mrs. Stowe writes of his later Western experiences as 
follows : 

" Mr. Beecher always looked back with peculiar tender- 
ness to his Western life, in the glow of his youthful days, 
and in that glorious, rich, abundant, unworn Western 
country. The West, with its wide, rich, exuberant 
spaces of land, its rolling prairies, garlanded with rain- 
bows of ever-springing flowers, teeming with abundance 
of food for man, and opening in every direction avenues 
for youthful enterprise and hope, was to him a morning 
land. To carry Christ's spotless banner in high triumph 
through such a land was a thing worth living for, and as 
he rode on horseback alone, from day to day, along the 
rolling prairie lands, sometimes up to his horse's head in 
grass and waving flowers, he felt himself kindled with a 
sort of ecstasy. The prairies rolled and blossomed in his 
sermons, and his style at this time had a tangled luxuri- 
ance of poetic imagery, a rush and abundance of words, 
a sort of rich and heavy involution that resembled the 
growth of a tropical forest. 

" ' What sort of a style am I forming ? ' he said to a 
critical friend who had come to hear him preach. 

" ' Well, I should call it tropical style,' was the reply. 

" There was a store in Indianapolis where the minis- 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 87 

ters of all denominations often dropped in to hear the 
news, and where the free Western nature made it always 
a rule to try each other's metal with a joke. No matter 
how sharp the joke, it was considered to be all fair and 
friendly. 

" On one occasion Mr. Beecher, riding to one of the 
stations of his mission, was thrown over his horse's head 
in crossing the Miami, pitched into the water, and crept 
out thoroughly immersed. The incident, of course, fur- 
nished occasion for talk in the circle the next day, and his 
good friend the Baptist minister proceeded to attack 
him the moment he made his appearance. 

" ' Oh, ho, Beecher, glad to see you ! I thought you'd 
have to come into our ways at last ! You have been im- 
mersed at last ; you are as good as any of us now.' A 
general laugh followed this sally. 

" * Poh, poh ! ' was the ready response, ' my immersion 
was a different thing from that of your converts. You 
see, I was immersed by a horse ; not by an ass.' 

"A chorus of laughter proclaimed that Mr. Beecher 
had got the better of the joke for this time. 

"A Methodist brother once said to him, 'Well, now, 
really, Brother Beecher, what have you against Method- 
ist doctrines ? ' 

" ' Nothing, only that your converts will practise 
them.' 

" ' Practise them ? ' 



88 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" - Yes, you preach falling from grace, and your con- 
verts practise it with a vengeance.' 

" One morning, as he was sitting at table, word was 
brought in that his friend the Episcopal minister was at 
the gate, wanting to borrow his horse. 

" ' Stop, stop,' said he, with a face of great gravity ; 
' there's something to be attended to first ; ' and rising 
from table, he ran out to him, and took his arm with the 
air of a man who is about to make a serious proposition. 

" ' Now, Brother G , you want my horse for a day ? 

Well, you see, it lies on my mind greatly that you don't 
admit of my ordination. I don't think ife-'s fair. Now if 
you'll admit that I'm a genuinely ordained minister you 
shall have my horse, but if not, I don't know about it.' 

" Mr. Beecher was so devoted to the West, and so 
identified with it, that he would never have left what he 
was wont to call his bishopric in Indiana for the older 
and more set and conventional circles of New York had 
not the health of his family made a removal indispensa- 
ble." 

The discoverer of Henry Ward Beecher in the Western 
country was James Cooke, formerly the business partner 
of William T. Cutler, one of the founders of Plymouth 
Church. Mr. Cooke praised young Beecher so highly 
that Mr. Cutler, who was once Lyman Beecher's parish- 
ioner, and had known Henry Ward as a boy ten or 
twelve years old, became interested, and told the pro- 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 89 

jectors of Plymouth Church about the Western orator, 
and he was asked to go out and see him. He heard 
Mr. Beecher with satisfaction, and arranged to have his 
expenses paid on to New York to address the Foreign 
Missionary Society at its meeting on May 14, 1847, at 
the Tabernacle, with Hon. Thomas Frelinghuysen in the 
chair. His speech on that occasion was generally con- 
sidered the best delivered during the week's session. In 
the course of it he said : 

" What was the condition of the world when Christ 
came into it ? The human family had been for four 
thousand years #upon its bosom. In so long a growth 
they had advanced from the lowest and rudest forms of 
life to something better. Little by little they had been 
developed, and at the time of Christ they stood where 
the progress of four thousand years had brought them. 
Savage habits had been laid aside ; from a feeble creature 
man gained strength ; unarmed before, he had now armed 
himself with the implements of industry ; from destitu- 
tion he had created the means of physical comfort, and of 
an outward life which might be called human — all this 
had been done in four thousand years, and men were 
ready for the Redeemer. Suppose the Gospel had been 
sent out into the world at any earlier period of its his- 
tory, do you think it could have been received and taken 
root ? What nation of men was prepared for it ? 

" And now, what is the attitude of Christianity in our 



90 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

day ? Which way do the times face ? To me they seem 
as though they were going up to Jerusalem. I believe 
that they are in their degree doing Heaven's work on 
earth. But what have we done ? Why, sir, we have 
raised every question which can be raised in civilized so- 
ciety. Nothing that relates to the rights of man, to lib- 
erty, to social forms and duties, but has been called up 
for discussion. Many of these are perplexing questions, 
doubtless, but it is necessary that they should be settled 
before the Gospel can get full swing at man. There must 
be a downfall to all that is opposed to the Gospel, no 
matter what it is. Governments, comntunities, customs, 
must come up to that standard ; God requires this. Es- 
tablished errors must be removed, and by-and-by the 
mind will begin to see truth in all its lustre, without lens 
or distracting medium. 

" The Gospel is getting ready to accomplish its work. I 
hope your faith is strong. You might as well stand on the 
banks of the Mississippi and be afraid it was going to run 
up-stream as to suppose that the current of Christendom 
can run more than one way. What would you think of, 
a man who should stand moon-struck over an eddy and 
because that didn't go right forward declare that the 
whole flood had got out of its course ? So in the stream 
of time. The things that appear in our day all have 
bearing on the coming triumphs of the Gospel and the 
reign of the Kingdom of Heaven on earth." 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 9 1 

Henry C. Bowen heard him, and offered to defray all 
expenses toward getting him East. Mr. Beecher was 
averse to leaving the West. " My heart," he said, " is 
there, and I am going back to stay if I can." Mrs. 
Beecher's health was becoming poor through the influ- 
ences of the Western climate, and soon after his return 
she became so ill that he wrote back to Brooklyn that if 
his wife survived he would start her and the children 
East as soon as her health would permit, and would fol- 
low as early afterward as he could. " And now," he 
wrote, " when you get me to the East you think you can 
do just what you* have a mind to do with me, but you 
will see." 

The formal offer to Mr. Beecher was a salary of $1,500 
a year. His letter of acceptance, which was received by 
Mr. Bowen, was sealed with one of those little picture- 
seals in vogue in those days. The picture was of a gate 
thrown from its fastenings, and the motto beneath it 
was : " I'm all unhinged." 

During his residence at Indianapolis the first conspic- 
uous effort of Mr. Beecher above the level of his ordi- 
nary pastoral duties was a revival begun in February, 
1842. At that time a controversy was going on — raging 
would hardly be too strong a description — between the 
Christian denomination (called then " Disciples " and 
" Campbellites "j and other sectaries, on the mode of 
baptism, the former holding immersion to be the only 



92 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

proper or efficacious mode, Methodists and Presbyterians 
dissenting. Public debates were frequent and sometimes 
acrimonious, an adherent of the comparatively new sect 
of Disciples being invariably one of the contestants* 
Rev. John O'Kane, a noted controversialist of that de- 
nomination, once in a good-humored and rather jocular 
tone challenged Mr. Beecher to a public debate, but the 
challenge was declined as pleasantly as it was offered. 
In this state of feeling among the denominations all over 
the West Mr. Beecher carried on his first revival, and an 
incident of it made him the subject of the first very 
harsh censure he had probably ever encountered. His 
congregation and many spectators had gathered on the 
canal bank, near Kentucky Avenue Bridge, to witness the 
baptism, by immersion in the canal, of one of the revival 
converts, a son of Solon W. Norris, a prominent citizen, 
who believed in that mode of administration of the rite. 
Before proceeding with it, Mr. Beecher made a brief 
speech to the crowd, in which he said that he held any 
mode of baptism effectual, but would always use that 
which the subject of it preferred. This was little less 
then than an avowal of agnosticism now, to the " immer- 
sionists," and they made Mr. Beecher the text of a good 
deal of unpleasant animadversion. 

In 1843 he delivered a series of twelve " Lectures to 
Young Men," primarily aiming to warn his revival con- 
verts and their associates of the temptations, perils, and 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 93 

struggles that lie in the paths of young men, and the 
methods of avoidance or resistance. They were a well 
done piece of work, in a literary point of view, better 
done as a shrewd and sound estimate of the condition 
and necessities of young men, especially in city life. 
They were always largely attended, and almost always 
cordially approved. The only exception was that on the 
" Strange Woman," and that, as he humorously says in 
his preface, received harsher censure before it was read 
than after. A considerable edition was sold in the West, 
and a second issued, which was republished in England, 
the first work of an Indiana author thus honored. 

Some two or three years before he left his church in 
Indianapolis for the " Plymouth," in Brooklyn, he de- 
livered several sermons on the subject of temperance. 
His father was one of the first men, if not the very first 
man, of eminence in this country to make a specialty of 
sermons or addresses on temperance. Henry had kept 
even step with the venerable missionary of sobriety and 
decency, and, it is not at all improbable, surpassed him 
in the vigor of his reprobation of intemperance. He 
extended his condemnation beyond the bar and the 
" grocery," as the saloon was then always called when it 
wasn't called " doggery," and took in the distiller and the 
wholesale dealer as equally culpable. There was no beer 
drunk in those days, or not enough to make it worth 
associating with the whiskey that the corn was turned 



94 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

into, except, as the old woman said, "what little is 
wasted in bread." The distiller, therefore, got not only 
the " hot end," but the whole poker, and regarding him- 
self, and being generally regarded, as a conspicuously 
respectable member of society, he did not fancy being 
associated with the doggery-keeper who made his trade 
profitable. A Mr. Comegys, who had at one time been 
engaged in the mercantile business in Indianapolis, but 
at that time was concerned in a distillery at Lawrence- 
burg, probably took huge offence at the " unrespective " 
preacher, and attacked his temperance teachings with 
more violence than force in the Journal. Mr. Beecher 
replied, and was met by a rejoinder which was also an- 
swered, the controversy running through two or three 
letters on each side. In the last of the distiller's publi- 
cations he made an indiscreet allusion to a method of 
refutation that suggested a threat of personal chastise- 
ment. To this came the characteristic retort that if 
there was to be a fight the preacher would take " a 
woman and a Quaker as his seconds." This ended the 
only newspaper controversy that the famous preacher 
ever had in Indianapolis, and he probably never had a 
more exciting one in his later life. 

G. W. Sloan, of Indianapolis, says : " I recall an anec- 
dote illustrating, as I think, Mr. Beecher's love of humor 
and drollery. He was naturally cut out for a great 
actor. Once he was returning from Terre Haute to India- 



HIS MARRIAGE AND LIFE IN THE WEST. 9$ 

napolis in a stage-coach. Mr. Graydon, a prominent 
member of his congregation, got into the coach at Gr*en- 
castle. It was dark, and after jogging along a little way 
in silence Mr. Beecher disguised his voice and began 
making inquiries of Mr. Graydon as to where he lived. 
When he learned that it was in Indianapolis, he began to 
ply his fellow-traveller with all manner of questions ; in- 
quired about Beecher's church and congregation, and 
finally about Beecher himself. Mr. Graydon was loyal, 
and eulogized Beecher greatly. The hoax was discov- 
ered at the next stopping-place." 

When Mr. Beecher came to break up house-keeping at 
Indianapolis, he divided his flowers and plants among 
half a dozen or more persons. He was the first person 
to bring rare plants and flowers to that city and give a 
taste for floriculture. 



o 



CHAPTER V. 

HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 

The Originating Idea. — Site Secured. — Beecher invited to Preach. — His Ser- 
mon on the Occasion. — Romans xiv. 12. — He returns to Indianapolis. 
— Completion of the Organization. — The Name Plymouth Adopted. — 
Beecher the Unanimous Vote. — He receives a Call from Plymouth 
Church. — Hesitates, but Accepts. — Inauguration of a Long Term of 
Service. — Destruction of the Church by Fire in 1849. — ** is Rebuilt. 
—A Health Trip to Europe. 

The idea controlling the organization of Plymouth 
Church, which seems to have originated with David 
Hale, one of the proprietors of the Journal of Commerce, 
was " to combine the descendants of the Pilgrims in a 
new and more general movement to introduce democratic 
and Puritan principles and policy in ecclesiastical affairs." 
Mr. Hale contended that Christians should unite in such 
a way as to make their influence felt, New England 
fashion, in managing church affairs. 

The property then known as the First Presbyterian 
Church was purchased. " The History of Plymouth 
Church," by Noyes L. Thompson, says : 

" The land, eighty-eight feet by two hundred feet, com- 
prising seven lots, and extending from Orange Street to 
Cranberry Street, now occupied by the Plymouth Church 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 97 

buildings, formerly belonged to the Hicks estate. The 
Presbyterian^Hociety purchased it of John and Jacob M. 
Hicks, in 1823, and erected thereon an edifice fifty-six 
feet by seventy-two feet, with a front on Cranberry Street, 
for the use of the First Presbyterian Church. At that 
time the population of Brooklyn was less than ten thou- 
sand, and many thought the erection of a church " out in 
the fields" an imprudent step. The new church, con- 
trary to the predictions of the would-be prophets, pros- 
pered, and to such an extent that an addition of eighteen 
feet to the building was soon necessary. In 1831 a Lec- 
ture Room (including Sunday-school rooms and a study) 
thirty-six feet by seventy-two feet was attached. 

" Rev. Joseph Sanford was the first pastor, officiating 
in that capacity from 1823 to 1829, when he was succeeded 
by the Rev. Daniel L. Carrol, D.D., who was followed 
by Rev. Samuel H. Cox, D.D., in 1837, and the Rev. 
Dr. Cox continued their pastor after the removal to their 
new house of worship in Henry Street, in 1847. 

" Brooklyn's population in 1846 was about sixty thou- 
sand, and though now called the City of Churches, pos- 
sessed then only thirty-nine houses of worship ; of these 
but one was of Congregational denomination. The want 
of another Congregational Church soon became apparent, 
and several public-spirited Christian gentlemen — John T. 
Howard, Henry C. Bowen, Seth B. Hunt, and David 
Hale — determined to supply that want. The new First 



93 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Presbyterian Church in Henry Street was almost com- 
pleted, and the Cranberry Street propert^had been of- 
fered for sale for $25,000. A consultation was held by 
these gentlemen, and Mr. Howard was authorized to ef- 
fect a purchase, if possible ; $20,000 ($9,500 payable in 
cash, and the residue, $10,500, to remain on mortgage) 
was offered, and in June, 1846, accepted." 

A meeting was convened at the residence of Mr. Henry 
C. Bowen, since prominent as the proprietor of The In- 
dependent, for the purpose of establishing a new Congre- 
gational Church in Brooklyn, in accordance with their 
mutual views. Messrs. Charles Rowland, David Hale 
(prominent as the editor of the Journal of Commerce), 
Jira Payne, David Griffin, H. C. Bowen, and John 
T. Howard attended this meeting. The " Plymouth 
Church Manual " records : 

" The meeting was opened by prayer ; after which 
David Hale made some statements in relation to the 
property now held by ' the Plymouth Church,' and then, 
in behalf of himself and the other owners, offered the 
use of said property for purpose of religious worship, as 
soon as the premises should be vacated by ' The First 
Presbyterian Church.' Whereupon it was 

" Resolved, That religious services shall be commenced, 
by Divine permission, on Sunday, the 16th day of May 
— that being the first Sabbath after the house was to be 
vacated." 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 99 

Mr. Beecher, who had on the 14th delivered his ad- 
dress before the Foreign Missionary Society in New 
York, was invited to deliver the opening sermon at the 
New Congregational Meeting House. Mr. William T. 
Cutler had heard Mr. Beecher, whom he knew as a boy, 
preach in Indianapolis, and secured him the invitation to 
address the Foreign Missionary Society, and here Mr. 
Bowen had listened to him ; and both of them were en- 
thusiastic in their belief that he would be a good selec- 
tion for their pastor. The Brooklyn Eagle, May 15th, 
published the following notice : 

" New Congregational Church. The Congregational 
Church in Cranberry Street (late Dr. Cox's) will be 
opened for religious worship to-morrow afternoon and 
evening. Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, from Indianapolis, 
Ind., is expected to preach in the morning and evening, 
and Rev. N. H. Eggleston, from Ellington, Conn., in the 
afternoon. The friends of the new enterprise, also all 
who are willing to aid in the establishment of a new 
church in that section of the city, are respectfully in- 
vited to attend." It is a little singular that no refer- 
ence is made in this notice to the address delivered the 
day before by Mr. Beecher before the Foreign Mission- 
ary Society, as it was considered " a great surprise and 
masterly effort, the reverend gentleman being a natural 
born orator." 

There was a good attendance at the morning service, 



100 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and a crowd in the evening. The sermon in the evening 
was on " Man's Accountability to God," the c *text being 
from Romans xiv. 12 : " So, then, every one of us shall 
give account of himself to God." In reporting the ser- 
mon the Tribune reporter remarks : 

" The speaker's manner was forcible and impressive, 
and the discourse, delivered in such a style, could not 
fail of producing a profound effect, as was visible at its 
close. We fear that in some instances we have not done 
justice to the reverend author of the sermon. We were 
obliged to omit several passages which we did not dis- 
tinctly hear, and in one or two cases we were completely 
distanced by the rapidity with which the speaker uttered 
his words." 

Mr. Beecher's sermon was as follows : 

" There is no doctrine which takes hold of men's fears 
with a firmer grasp than this ; and when it is understood 
to include the whole life — the interior and the exterior 
life — and that it is to sum up every thought and feeling, 
that they are to pass a critical and rigid review, and that 
man's final destiny is to be determined by his deeds done 
in the body ; when the doctrine is so presented and felt 
by men, it sometimes works their reformation and re- 
pentance, and oftentimes it works mischief to them, and 
they strive if possible to avert the doctrine, to evade its 
requirements ; and almost all the popular errors which 
have sprung up in Theology are errors whose effect has 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IOI 

been to lighten the pressure, either directly or indirectly, 
of this great fundamental doctrine of God's government ; 
so you may grade these errors in respect to their bane- 
fulness, according to the degrees in which they omit to 
teach and enforce the doctrine of man's accountability 
to God. But yet what avails it if it be a true doctrine 
if we should leave it out of all our theories ? It is a 
practical and personal question, and one pertinent to 
every individual in this congregation. If it be a hideous 
dream, we should be awakened from it. If it be a sol- 
emn annunciation from the God of Heaven and earth, 
we should attend to it, and make a practical matter of 
it. To those who are satisfied with the simple declara- 
tion of the Bible, that there is such a scene as a final 
judgment to take place, I need adduce no argument to 
prove that men will give account of themselves to God. 
They believe it because it is declared in simple strains 
throughout the New Testament. But there are many 
who have been so accustomed to read these declarations 
as mere unmeaning assertions possessing no Divine 
power or truth ; there are many who have so handled 
them that they have no longer any significance as proof 
of this doctrine ; and merely to quote texts to such, is 
to make declarations which will be altogether without 
force. 

" I purpose, therefore, instead of first entering into the 
Bible to seek for evidence to support this doctrine, to 
5 



102 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

take another course of argument, and ascertain whether 
this is or not a fundamental principle that runs through 
God's government, and whether it is or not inherent in 
the nature of man. I do not hesitate to declare that 
there is abundant evidence outside of the Bible of the 
truth of this great declaration, that we are to be held 
to a rigid accountability to God for all our actions and 
thoughts in this world. 

" Let us start, then, from the beginning, and take man 
and follow him up from the cradle to the grave, through 
all his relations of life — his relations to his family, his 
neighbors, his country — and see if this doctrine is not 
practically acknowledged by him throughout his entire 
career. 

" And first : When the child is born into the world 
and becomes a member of a family, he is as helpless as 
helplessness itself, and entirely dependent upon those 
whose duty under God it is to watch over, and protect, 
and nourish him ; but just as the child begins to develop 
its understanding — just as it begins to be able to act for 
itself — from the very moment that it begins to manifest 
its preference for one thing over another, that very mo- 
ment it is met on the threshold of life by parental re- 
straint and supervision which are necessary to its exist- 
ence. The anxious mother is ever on the watch lest it 
should come to harm. It may not take poisonous food 
— the mother's care restrains it; it may not fall from 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IO3 

precipitous places — the mother rescues it ; it may not 
come to injury or harm — the mother ever shields it. 
And not alone in respect to these things is it restrained, 
but the governing hand of the parents is felt in all its 
relations, its actions, and desires, and the child is taught 
that it is to occupy a subordinate position in the family, 
and be subject to the wishes of its superiors. It is taught 
that there must be certain limits to its wishes and ac- 
tions — that the parents are the governors of the family, 
that there are others to participate in its privileges, and 
that his liberty must be reduced within those limits ; 
and in every well-regulated family a child is taught to 
conform itself to the wishes of its superiors ; and just in 
proportion as it is not so taught, the family is badly gov- 
erned. So that the very first experience which we have 
when we come into life is, that we cannot do as we please. 
At every step we meet with restraint and coercion ; our 
wishes are opposed, our expectations thwarted, by our 
guardians continually. 

" But the child grows older, and passes out for a time 
from the immediate supervision of its parents, and enters 
into the school, where it is surrounded with new rela- 
tions. Does it drop the principle here ? or is its bind- 
ing force augmented ? Why, the child at school, the 
same as the child at home, is under the control and gov- 
ernment of its parents ; and in aspiring into another 
sphere it has brought itself under an additional responsi- 



104 LIFE* AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

bility. The child now is not alone held responsible to 
its parents, but to its teacher also. It finds that in all its 
relations in the school, it is under the influence of this 
principle of accountability. It cannot carry out its own 
wishes in the school-room. The teacher is there. His 
authority presses upon the child, and reward for obedi- 
ence and penalty for disobedience cause it to come down 
to its proper place, and he feels that so far from ridding 
himself of the influence of this principle of accountabil- 
ity by entering school, he has greatly added to it — that 
where he previously had one governor he now has two. 

" But there is an interval between school and home 
duties ; there is a time which they call play-spell, when 
they are no longer under the control of the parent or of 
the teacher ; a time when they are left entirely to them- 
selves, with no one to command them or thwart their 
humors ; and now, surely, they will have a breathing- 
time ; now they can cast off for a time this onerous yoke 
of accountability and revel unrestrained in the Utopia 
of freedom. But no, they will not ; for there are laws 
among the young by which they are governed as with a 
rod of iron. Is there not a law of honor among all 
young men, to which they must yield implicit obedience ? 
Can they go against the ordinary customs and usages of 
the circles in which they move ? To be sure, they do 
not take into their hands the same authority and assume 
the same control as their parents and teachers do ; but 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 105 

they have laws of their own which must be obeyed, and 
if any of their number will not do as they ought to do, 
they are cast out of the circle, shunned by their former 
associates, and made to feel that they cannot infringe 
with impunity upon the conventionalities of the so- 
ciety in which they move. So, then, even when they 
are without the influence of the family and the school, 
they are compelled instantly to put on the harness of 
accountability, as if they could not live without it. 

" Next, the youth having made some attainments in 
learning, and coming to the years which are proper, goes 
forth to learn his profession or trade, and in this new re- 
lation of life does he lose sight of this principle, or does 
it lose sight of him ? Can he go into the shop of the 
mechanic as an apprentice and perform such service as 
he will ? No. As a student in the office can he study 
when and what he will ? No. In whatever vocation 
he may put himself, he finds that he is responsible to 
him to whom he is bound ; he is obliged to obey him, 
and if he does not, he loses the object he is seeking by 
his connection with his master. 

" But at last the young man is established. He has 
now attained to years of discretion, and the law pro- 
nounces him free from his parents. He has gained the 
means of livelihood, and establishes himself in business. 
And is he not now released from this law ? Is he not 
set free at last ? No ; by no means. As a citizen, he 



106 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

comes under the law of the land ; as a member of his 
neighborhood, he is under a responsibility to his neigh- 
bors. And more than this, there is no calling in life 
that is independent of other men. Let a man be a me- 
chanic, a lawyer, a physician, a merchant, or what he 
will, he will find that he must conform himself, in a 
measure, to the wishes and opinions of those by whom 
he is surrounded. Let a physician assume the prepos- 
terous position of absolute independence, and say, * I am 
of age, and will have my opinions, and will do what I 
please, and will not be governed or influenced by my 
neighbors or professional brethren ; ' and they will say, 
* We are of age, and we will have our opinions, and one 
among the rest is, that you are not fit to be trusted with 
the life of a fellow-being ; and you may get your living 
as you can — we will have nothing to do with you.' Let 
a lawyer do the same, and his clients will have a very 
quiet way of shutting his mouth, and will give him 
abundant leisure for reflection in regard to his philoso- 
phy of independence as applied to business. And so it is 
in every vocation of life. You are all under obligations 
to regard the opinions of those who stand around you, 
who are to help you, and whom you are to help. In the 
great Brotherhood of Man no one can -say, ' I am alone ; 
I need not the aid of others ; I will not regard this law 
of accountability ; I will not respect the conventionali- 
ties of society ; I am independent of all.' You are not 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IO7 

independent — you are responsible to those around you 
for help. This web of mutual responsibility is wove 
around the human family, and if you will not regard it, 
if you seek to break through it, a heavy penalty will be 
inflicted upon you, and it is just that you should receive 
it. 

" This leads me to speak of Civil Government. There 
is not a tribe, a state, or a people on the globe known 
to exist without a form of government, ruder or more 
perfect. I apprehend that I do not mistake when I say 
that there never did exist a tribe or people without 
some form of government. If it be said that this is the 
result of man's ignorance, I am prepared to show that 
the very contrary is the fact ; that just in proportion as 
men grow wiser, the more government they have. And 
there are no communities that are so completely bound 
and wound round, and round, and round with the meshes 
of civil government as those which are at this time con- 
sidered the most learned and enlightened on the globe. 
This is the experience of six thousand years, that man 
cannot live wisely and well without some system of gov- 
ernment, and that for their full development and for 
their rising up in the scale of progress it is necessary that 
they should be under a just and healthy accountability. 
Nay, I go further ; after the law has gone as far as it is 
possible for it to go, it cannot go as far as men feel there 
is a need of going, and, therefore, whenever, under the 



108 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

civil and social laws of the community, men confederate for 
purposes of any kind whatever, new compacts are formed. 
They always build these upon some constitution : rules 
or regulations having their expressed or implied penal- 
ties. You cannot find that company of men independ- 
ent of all these obligations which society is under and 
which every individual in society is under to all around 
him. 

" We are not yet done unravelling this web which is 
woven around men until we see where this principle is 
carried in society. Men are accountable for their feelings 
and their opinions as well as their conduct. 

" It may seem strange to say that men are held account- 
able for their opinions ; but they are, and will be forever 
— and that, too, in the freest land, and under the most 
liberal government. For instance, let any prominent 
man in either of the great political parties of this country 
stand up and affirm his repugnance to any one of the 
great principles of his party. Let it be understood that 
he is advocating and disseminating principles and opin- 
ions which are abhorrent to that party, and what will be 
the result ? They cannot imprison him ; they cannot 
lay hold on him and load him with chains, and thrust 
him into the dark dungeon of the criminal — but they can 
ostracise him ; and now let him, regardless of his own 
private interests, and anxious only to serve his country 
by representing his fellow-citizens in her legislative 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IOC) 

halls, attempt to run for any office, and there will be 
those letters called votes, which will silently but surely 
spell out his condemnation, and he will be allowed the 
privilege of remaining at home, freed from the cares 
and toils of office. 

" Men are not only held accountable for their opinions 
and feelings by the Church, but by the popular sentiment 
also. To be sure, there are many feelings and sentiments 
condemned by the Church that the general community 
does not reprobate ; but the general community requires 
from its members a respect for all the fundamental prin- 
ciples of honesty and justice, and he who is guilty of any 
transgression of them is instantly girdled by the scorn 
of the community in which he resides. 

" Let a man dwell in your household — let it be known 
to you that he revolves base and dishonorable purposes 
in his mind that will never take the form of outward de- 
velopment and actions, and you will immediately take 
measures to remove him from your family, that they may 
not be exposed to the possibility of contamination by 
coming in contact with his baleful mind. And so in the 
general community. Suppose the case of a young man 
in indigent circumstances, who comes to your city to 
build up his fortune — to gain a profession. His father 
and his mother make every sacrifice to assist him ; they 
toil in poverty that they may secure his success — that 
they may give him an education — and it is said that he 
5* 



IIO LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

has literally consumed them to profit himself, and at 
last, with joy in their hearts and tears in their eyes, they 
hear of his triumph in this metropolis ; with fond antici- 
pations of the grateful reception which they will receive 
at his hands, they come to visit him in his splendid man- 
sion. But, when he hears of their coming, instead of 
rushing to meet them with open arms and a heart over- 
flowing with filial love and gratitude, and escorting them 
to his own home and introducing them to his family and 
friends as the author of his being, and those to whom, 
under God, he is indebted for the position and prosperity 
he now enjoys, he goes out alone to meet them, and 
conducts them to some secret place where his fash- 
ionable friends will not see them, and where he visits 
them furtively; for he is ashamed of his father and 
mother — not on account of their minds, but on account 
of their rude dress and manners. Now let this fact 
be known in the circles in which he moves — let him 
visit at your house ; with what face will you receive 
him ? You will manifest an irrepressible indignation at 
such base and inhuman conduct — and why? He has 
not broken any law ? No ; but you say that you have 
detected in him feelings unworthy of a man, and he very 
soon perceives that his want of feeling is reprobated, and 
in future he is careful to guard against any public exhibi- 
tion of his unnatural disposition, although at heart he is 
the same inhuman monster as before. The consequence 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. Ill 

of all this is, that men veil their corrupt inclinations 
under the garb of seeming virtue ; and thus all bad men 
are compelled, by the force of popular opinion, to be- 
come hypocrites. Men are very fond of talking about 
the hypocrisy of the Church. God knows there is 
enough of it there ; but when compared with the hypoc- 
risy out of the Church, it sinks into nothingness. 

" The last step we shall take is in respect to that class 
of men in our nation which have gone steadily down 
from one step to another, till they can be no longer tol- 
erated in the community. They have gone down regu- 
larly from point to point ; their specific gravity has sunk 
them down and down into the abyss of crime, until they 
are appropriately called OUTLAWS. Now at last we have 
got at a class of men who will have nothing to do with this 
accountability. It was because they hated restraint that 
they went down. They loved progression, and they went 
down and down and down till they could get at a wider 
circle, where they might act out the innate depravity of 
their natures without any restraint from their fellow-men, 
and indeed it would seem that — now they have got be- 
yond the last bond of society — they will be freed from 
this principle of accountability. But, ah ! how mistaken. 
There are laws among thieves, and in the vilest bandit's 
den that ever darkened the mountain-side, and on the 
bloodiest deck of the pirate's ship there are masters and 
a rule more iron than the peaceful denizens of a Chris- 



112 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

tian community can conceive of. So that when men by 
reason of their hatred of restraint have thrown them- 
selves wholly out of society, they have found that they 
could not get rid of their own nature so easily as they 
could of human laws. They must be governed by these 
or by themselves. 

" I have attempted, simply to prove, by reference to 
facts such as would be allowed in any scientific argument, 
that the law of accountability to God is carried out in 
all the relations of life. We have seen that it is carried 
into every sphere of human action, and hence it is unne- 
cessary that we should declare, as we do declare, that the 
law of accountability to God is the universal law of the 
universe, and that it is just as universal as breath is. 

" We now come back to the Bible, and ask ourselves, 
What does that teach ? It professes to be the exposition 
of man's character, and the revelator of God's principles 
of government, as they relate to man. And now it is not 
necessary to take text after text and chip and chip them 
to make them fit one another ; it is not necessary to put 
one text after another to torture in order to prove that 
man is accountable to God. We find that if there never 
had been a word spoken in the Bible in relation to this 
subject we could draw up this doctrine just as plainly 
from the facts as we now can. The Bible simply declares 
of that which existed before ; it was not the promulgation 
of an arbitrary law, it was simply the declaration of the 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 113 

existence of that which God made when He made all 
things. And indeed it may be said that if the Bible, pro- 
posing to be a revelation of the laws of God to man, had 
omitted this doctrine, it would have cast a doubt, a shade, 
upon the sacred Word itself. What would you think of 
a Bible that forgot to say that there is a God ? and what 
would be said of a Bible that should attempt to teach 
the relations of God, and of man to God, and should leave 
out the doctrine of man's accountability to God. 

" I am now prepared, in the light of this subject, to 
discuss one or two points that are relevant. The first is 
the objection that is made by a certain class of reasoners. 
It is said if there be established such a law throughout 
society, it goes against your position — men will be pun- 
ished here and not hereafter. We say, Thank you. If 
men are punished here, it does not follow that they will 
not be punished in the life to come. This is a question 
of fact. I admit that there are punishments in every de- 
partment of the world. God has fixed natural and con- 
stitutional punishment as guards against the infraction 
of natural and constitutional laws. They are not aveng- 
ing punishments, however, but precautionary. If there 
is a precipice over which men will be likely to fall, the 
authorities place a bridge over it, not to punish, but to 
prevent, accident. If a man draws near to a poisonous sub- 
stance, an odor will meet him offensive to his sense, but 
it is that he may avoid the threatened danger. All these 



114 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

evils are precautionary. And so throughout Nature ; but 
it is not necessary — indeed, it will not be possible — here to 
specify all these precautions and warnings which God has 
planted -so thickly throughout all his creation. 

" Now if men are punished in this world for their sins, 
it can be shown that their punishment is graduated in 
proportion to the magnitude of their crimes. The fact, 
however, is not so, but contrariwise ; it is .established 
that men never suffer so much as when they are the 
youngest and the newest in sin. When a man first be- 
gins to steal, he has more fear and more shame than 
when he has become an inveterate offender. I remember 
the time when I swore the first oath. It seemed as 
though every leaf on the trees and every blade of grass 
were vocal in their condemnation of my sin. The very 
sky seemed to lower upon me, and all Nature raised the 
note of reproof. But in after-days, under the demoraliz- 
ing influence of bad company, I became able to use pro- 
fane language without a blush — without the least remorse 
of conscience ; and finally, without being conscious of the 
language I employed. 

" How is it, when a man in an affray first draws the 
blood of his fellow-creature, his hand draws back, as if it 
were scalding hot, and dreams terrify him, and he is 
haunted for months by the bleeding victim of his rage. 
But let him go from fray to fray, and by-and-by butchery 
will become a mere excitement. In the lower parts of 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 115 

our own country, so much is this the case, that a fray is 
sought as a cup is sought — merely as a pleasant excite- 
ment wherewith to while away the time. It needs no 
argument to prove that in proportion as men go down in 
this world, just in that proportion they lose their sensi- 
bility — till at last it becomes seared as with a red-hot 
iron ; and this being the case, what becomes of the doc- 
trine of punishment in this life ? Just in proportion as 
their crimes increase, their punishment decreases; the 
further they get from rectitude the lighter are their suf- 
ferings. According to this doctrine, a man should go the 
whole figure and commit crimes wholesale. They that 
nibble at transgression are the greater fools, and they 
that go deep into crime are the wise. This is a dreadful 
but still a true doctrine. This subject also affords some 
light to that popular and mischievous maxim that it 
makes no difference what a man believes if he is only 
sincere. Where can we find any such law as that except 
in the code of the reasoners ? Does it make no difference 
in the laws of Nature ? Suppose a man jumps from the 
top of a high building upon the pavement, and says, I 
believe those flag-stones as soft as downy pillows, does 
Nature any the less dash him in pieces ? Suppose a man 
should attempt to produce pleasure in himself by taking 
poisonous substances, or suppose he should breathe as 
well under water as in the air of heaven, and should 
plunge beneath the waves of the deep, what would Nat- 



Il6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ure care for his sincerity ? Try this principle under the 
civil law. Is it no matter what a man believes under 
the civil laws ? Will he be excused the commission 
of crime, if he only says he is sincere ? Can you find a 
judge who will charge a jury thus, or a lawyer who will 
urge such a plea in defence of a client, when it has been 
a maxim from time immemorial that ignorance of the 
law excuses no man ? Try the same principle in mercan- 
tile life. Let a man under your employment be sent to 
a distant point to transact some important business. He 
makes a blunder and loses hundreds of dollars, and his 
excuse for it is his sincerity ; the blunder is repeated, and 
he loses thousands ; and when you reprove him for his 
carelessness, his only excuse is, ' I was sincere in believ- 
ing that I was acting in a manner which would best pro- 
mote your interests.' You would reply, ' Your sincerity 
is none the less ruinous, and I must discharge you.' 

" Try the same principle in respect to your own feel- 
ings. Suppose a man should say you are a knave, and 
upon your asking for an explanation he should say, ' I 
admit that I said so, but I now acknowledge that I did 
wrong; I was in a passion at the time, and said it in 
haste. I am sorry for what I have done, and I ask your 
forgiveness.' This would be a balm for your wounded 
feelings, and you would freely forgive him. But sup- 
pose that, instead of this, he should say, ' I did call you 
a knave, and I believed it, and I believe it now.' This 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. llj 

would be the most venomous part of it. You would 
say, ' It is not enough that you be sincere ; you must 
substantiate your belief by proof. I will have recourse 
to the law.' And if you hold to the principle of saying 
what you think is true, regardless of the feelings and 
character of others, you shall bear the penalty of it. 

" Now here is a principle that is false in every depart- 
ment of life, till you come into morals — and that prin- 
ciple which business would not for a moment support 
is applied and insisted upon in arguing moral and re- 
ligious questions. It does make a difference what we 
believe. God will hold us accountable for our belief 
just as true as He will hold us accountable for our ac- 
tions. 

" The only inference I will attend to is this : that God 
will hold men accountable for their opinions under the 
Gospel and for what they know. Then it may be said 
it will be best for them not to know too much. But He 
will hold them accountable for what they do not know 
that they should know. 

" For example : a miserly and selfish guardian of a de- 
fenceless orphan appropriates to himself the whole estate 
of his ward, and upon the fact being known, a suit is 
brought by the friends of the orphan to recover the 
property. It is found to be a clear case of fraud, and the 
estate can be easily regained. The whole community is 
aroused, and all their sympathies are with the aggrieved 



Il8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

orphan. At length the trial comes on — the jury is im- 
panelled and the case opened. And while the evidence 
is going on one juryman is reading a newspaper, another 
is talking to a friend, and several are asleep, as if they 
were in church. When they go out, they remember 
nothing about the merits of the case. They put one 
thing and another together, and come out and give a 
verdict, not in favor of the injured plaintiff, but in favor 
of the defendant. 

"Now. what will the people say to these jurymen? 
One of them some time after this occurrence is a humble 
seeker to serve the people by going to Congress. He is 
remembered, and it will be said, This is one of the men 
that served that infamous course on that jury. And he 
says, in extenuation of his conduct, ' It was my desire to 
render a verdict in accordance with the evidence, but / 
did not know what it was!" ' Did not know what it 
was ! ' some sturdy old farmer would say to him ; ' what 
were you put there for, if it was not for the express 
purpose of hearing the evidence and rendering a just 
verdict ? Your excuse only stamps you with a deeper 
disgrace than your false verdict had already done, and is 
proof positive of your unfitness to fill any station requir- 
ing common watchfulness and honesty.' 

" Now God has given the light of Jesus Christ. God 
has stopped the career of His whole government and in- 
terposed a new system. God has rent the heavens in 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. I 19 

twain that He might bring the truth to light and life and 
immortality. Star after star in bright constellations have 
beamed out and Jesus Christ has brought truth to light. 
Truth preached, truth sent through the Bible, and 
through a living ministry to the whole people. And 
now, if anyone seeks to evade it and avoid it, God will 
hold every such guilty man accountable for his ignorance. 
The truth is here, and it is your greatest interest to know 
it, and you are ignorant of it at your peril. 

" Finally, if this doctrine is true, what will be the 
account that we have to give to God ? 

" I remark that you will have to give an account be- 
fore God in respect to your relations to yourself, to one 
another, and to God. 

" Let us see how many points there are under each of 
these heads : 

" First, the duties which refer more particularly to 
ourselves. 

" Each of you will have to give an account to God for 
rour time— for every hour, for every moment. You 
r ill have to give an account to God for every power of 
tind — for the use of every one, for the culture of every 
one ; for every power of thought and imagination ; for 
all your religious and social faculties. He will call you 
to account for all your passions and motives — for all 
your conduct. My friend, you may well feel some ter- 
rors when you reflect that all that conduct of which you 



120 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

were so ashamed will be revealed by the Almighty in 
the dread Day of Judgment, and you will be compelled 
to look on it, and your neighbor will look on it, and all 
the assembled hosts of heaven and hell shall look upon 
it, and upon you as the author of it. And to those who 
do not now feel any terrors, I would say that there is a 
day of terror coming when God will call you to account 
for all the Divine efforts made in your behalf — for all the 
special Providences that have been sent to your door — 
for all the personal influences that have ever been brought 
to bear upon you in the sanctuary or out of the sanctu- 
ary. 

" Secondly : God will call you to account for all the 
duties which you owe to others — for the discharge of 
your public duties as citizens. 

" Are you an officer ? God will hold you to a strict 
account for the manner in which the duties of that office 
are discharged. I am afraid, my friends, from the signs 
of the times, that this doctrine is not much preached or 
understood ; namely, that God will hold those in place 
to a higher account than those beneath them. God will 
call you to account for the manner in which in this life 
you discharge your duties to your family, your neighbor- 
hood, your town, your State, and your whole land. An 
inert citizen, an unpatriotic man, will have something to 
answer for at the bar of God. Every time you have 
voted those lots which were right and just God has 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 121 

noted them down, though men have not. And you will 
be called to account for all the opportunities to do good 
that you have neglected to improve. If there is a young 
man in this world that might have been held back from 
intemperance by you, and you did not do it, God will 
hold you accountable for it. It is not a safe thing for a 
man to neglect to do good in this world. 

" For all of the influences you have exerted intention- 
ally or unintentionally, God will call you to account. 
There are many men who study to exert a malign influ- 
ence upon their fellows. Well, let them do it. They 
wag their empty heads, and swing themselves down 
through the streets independent and free to do what they 
choose. ' The world owes me a living,' say they, ' and I 
will have it. I care for no man. I care for no law, for 
no public opinion.' God has His eye upon them. No 
archer ever drew a surer bow upon his devoted game 
than God has done upon these men, and His avenging 
bolt will fall with tenfold terror on their heads when they 
shall find the grave yawning to receive them, and fearful 
will be their fate when the black billows of death shall 
sweep them resistless to their inexorable doom. 

" In a less degree it is no less true that a man's unin- 
tentional offences will have to be accounted for. Is there 
a man in this congregation who has children that he 
loves ? Have they ever heard the voice of prayer raised 
in grateful acknowledgment from before the family altar 



122 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to the Dispenser of all good ? That dear and beloved 
daughter, that son growing up now into man's estate, — 
has not the whole of your conduct been such as to prac- 
tically teach them that there is no God ? You may have 
told them of God in a casual manner, the same as you 
have of Alexander ; and you may have, in a formal, life- 
less manner, informed them that it is their duty to 
obey God, and to love and serve Him. But your life — 
your whole warm, spontaneous life — has ever preached a 
doctrine exactly the reverse ; and which do you suppose 
a child will believe first, a father's talk or a father's life ? 
Most unquestionably the latter ; and if that has told 
your children that all that God requires from His children 
is lip-service, and they grow up without ever coming to a 
knowledge of God's saving mercy, and their souls are 
finally lost, God will hold them accountable in their meas- 
ure, but you will be held accountable also, as accessary to 
their guilt, and fearful will be the dread account which 
you will have to meet. 

" Lastly : for all our duties toward God we shall be 
brought to a strict account. 

" For the way in which we have treated the overtures 
of mercy made us through the Lord Jesus Christ, for the 
hardening of our hearts against the persuasive influences 
and efforts of our blessed Redeemer for our salvation, 
God will call us to account. Is there a man in this con- 
gregation who will say, I say I do not believe God will 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 23 

punish me for all through eternity for my little sins ? 
Give me your hand on that. You have so many great 
sins that God will have enough to do to punish you for 
them alone, without taking into the account what you 
are pleased to style your little sins. For defiling your 
whole nature, for the prostitution of your powers, for 
turning yourselves who were the sons of God into base 
materials of the flesh — for this destruction of yourselves 
God will call you to a strict account. And can you meet 
that account ? Dare any man say I am ready to make 
the venture ? 

" There are some men who will not go to heaven, be- 
cause they are so very moral ; they wish to go with the 
understanding that they are entitled to the favor or else 
not at all. They do not feel -willing to accept heaven as 
a boon granted by the infinite love of a merciful God, but 
they desire to merit it through their own good works. 
They will not go up to heaven's gate and plead the aton- 
ing blood of the blessed Lamb of God as their passport 
into the Heavenly Land — the home of the redeemed — but 
they offer in exchange for the delights and pleasures of 
eternity the meagre catalogue of their own actions here 
on earth. Is it strange their offer is not accepted ? As 
for myself, I know what I will do when God calls my 
soul to judgment. I know when I shall look back upon 
my life it will be folly to attempt to justify anything that 
I have ever done. I will turn to Christ and say, Thou 



124 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

hast promised to save me if I would trust in Thee, and I 
have trusted in Thee, and now I claim the fulfilment of 
Thy promise, O Lord ! Here I am, and my only hope 
is in Thee. And then Christ will throw around about 
me the shield of His righteousness, not because I am not 
a sinner, but because I am a sinner, loved and shielded 
of Christ. But you refuse to take this Christ at His 
word, you reject His promise, and therefore He will re- 
ject you. 

" My friends, I am speaking to some of you for the last 
time. You and I will meet again on the Judgment Day, 
and I am now telling you how much you stand in need 
of a Saviour, of that Saviour whom my soul has felt, and 
whom my soul loves. I offer Him to you, and I will do 
it with all that sincerity, and all that earnestness, with 
which I shall wish I had when I meet you at the bar of 
God. Oh, my friends, will you not begin now to be wise, 
before the saving influences of God's Holy Spirit are with- 
drawn from your hearts, and these things are hidden from 
your sight forever ? Death is coming, and after that the 
judgment, and after that eternity. My fathers, you who 
have experienced the benefits of God's mercy for many 
years, where will you be on that day ? Were God to call 
you hence this night, what would be your chances for 
heaven ? My dear friends, what would be your chances 
of heaven were you called hence to-night ? Jesus Christ 
is ready to take all who desire salvation, and I preach 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 125 

Him once for all — Christ, the sinner's friend and your 
friend." 

Mr. Beecher created such a favorable impression by 
his two discourses that the opinion previously entertained 
of him by Messrs. Bowen and Cutler was generally in- 
dorsed, and the little congregation determined, if possible, 
to secure the pastor of the Second Presbyterian Church 
of Indianapolis, when the organization should have been 
completed. 

It was announced that morning that there would be a 
continued series of weekly prayer-meetings, commencing 
on the succeeding Friday evening, in the lecture-room. 
About thirty persons attended the meeting on the ensu- 
ing Friday, nearly all of whom expressed a wish to join 
the church at its organization. At the close of the ser- 
vices, which were conducted by Jira Payne, a business 
meeting was convened, and, to quote from the " Plymouth 
Manual," " On motion of David Hale, from New York, 
John T. Howard, Henry C. Bowen, Richard Hale, 
Charles Rowland, and Jira Payne were appointed a 
committee to make arrangements for the formation of 
a church ; to prepare and report Articles of Faith and a 
Covenant, a form of admission, ecclesiastical principles 
and rules, manual for business, etc. Also to give notice, 
the following Sabbath, to all persons who desired to be 
connected with the church at its organization to be pres- 
ent at the next Friday evening prayer-meeting. 



126 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" At the two subsequent prayer meetings," continues 
the " Manual," " twenty-one persons handed in their 
names to be organized into a church. On Friday even- 
ing, June nth, the committee appointed to prepare Arti- 
cles of Faith, etc., made their report, which, after some 
amendments, was adopted, and notice given that the 
church would be organized on the following Sabbath 
evening. 

" A council of ministers and delegates from other 
churches convened at the house of John T. Howard, on 
Saturday evening, June 12th, by invitation of the com- 
mittee, who presented to said council the Articles of 
Faith and Covenant adopted, also the credentials of 
those persons who expected to be organized into a 
church." 

The council consisted of — 

Rev. Richard S. Storrs, Jr., Pastor. 
Chandler Starr, Delegate. 

From the Church of the Pilgrims. 
Rev. I. N. Sprague, Pastor. 
A. B. Davenport, Delegate. 

From the Second Congregational Church. 
Rev. J. P. Thompson, Pastor. 
David Hale, Delegate. 

From the Broadway Tabernacle Church, 
New York. 



Rev. D. C. Lansing, D.D., Pastor. 
Seymour Whiting, Delegate. 

From the Chrystie Street Congregational 
Church, New York. 

The council approved the actions of the committee, 
and accepted an invitation to participate in the public 
services of the organization, on the following evening 
(Sunday, June 1 3th), when the church was duly organized, 
and the opening sermon delivered by the Rev. R. S. 
Storrs, Jr. Several names for the new society had been 
suggested — The Cranberry Street Church, the Wyckliffe 
Church, and the Plymouth Church. 

A religious society, in conformity with New York State 

Laws, was formed on Monday evening, June 14, 1847, 

with a membership of twenty-one ; Henry C. Bowen, 

John T. Howard, and Daniel Burgess were elected 

Trustees, to serve, each in the order written, for the 

term of one, two, and three years ; and the corporate 

name of 

THE PLYMOUTH CHURCH 

was adopted by the society. The Certificate of Incor- 
poration was recorded in the Clerk's Office of King's 
County, September 27, 1847. 

The names of the original members were : 

1. Howard, John T. 3. Bowen, Lucy Maria. 

2. Bowen, Henry C. 4. Payne, Jira. 



128 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

5. Payne, Eliza. 13. Rowland, Charles. 

6. Knight, Rachel. 14. Rowland, Maria. 

7. Hale, Richard. 15. Webb, John. 

8. Hale. Julia. 16. Webb, Martha. 

9. Turner, Alpheus R. 17. Blake, Eli C. 

10. Turner, Louisa. 18. Morse, John F. 

11. Burgess, Benjamin. 19. Morse, Rebecca. 

12. Burgess, Mary. 20. Cannon, Mary. 

21. Griffin, David. 

On the evening of the formal organization of the so- 
ciety a unanimous vote had been cast electing Rev. 
Henry Ward Beecher to the vacant pastorate, and a 
committee had been appointed to present him with the 
invitation to that office. After two months' deliberation 
— during which time the pulpit had been occupied by 
various ministers, generally from New England — Mr. 
Beecher, partly influenced by the entreaties of William 
T. Cutler, and partly by the continued ill-health of his 
family while resident in the West, almost reluctantly — 
for, as he had said, " his heart was with the West " — ac- 
cepted the call by letter. 

"Indianapolis, August 19, 1847. 
" Dear Brothers : I desire to convey through you 
to the Plymouth Church and congregation my accept- 
ance of the call to the pastoral office tendered by them 
to me. 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 29 

" I cannot regard the responsibilities of this important 
field without the most serious diffidence, and I wholly 
put my trust in that Saviour whom I am to preach in 
your midst. I can heartily adopt the language of Paul, 
' Brethren, pray for us, that the word of the Lord may 
have free course and be glorified.' 

" It will be necessary for me to remain yet for some 

time in this place ; but I hope to arrive in Brooklyn in 

the middle of October, or at the furthest, by the first of 

November. 

" I am, in Christian love, 

" Most Truly Yours, 

" H. W. Beecher. 

" To John T. Howard, Henry C. Bowen, Charles 
Rowland, and others." 

Henry Ward Beecher entered upon pastoral duties in 
Plymouth Church on Sunday morning, October 10, 

1847. 

Mr. Thompson records that " the evening services 
were fully attended, and to the astonishment of all, and 
dissatisfaction of some, he laid aside the doctrinal the- 
ologies of the morning in favor of the living issues of 
the times, and boldly and clearly defined the position he 
had taken and intended to hold in reference to slavery, 
temperance, war, and general reform." 

Alluding to his first sermon in Plymouth Church, 



I30 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

after accepting the call, Mr. Beecher, who, as previously 
stated, had delivered several anti-slavery sermons in In- 
dianapolis, observed to a friend : 

" In the first sermon that I preached on the Sun- 
day night in the new church, when I had accepted the 
call and came there in the fall, I made a proclamation of 
my sentiments on the slavery matter, on temperance 
matters, on war and peace, on all those great themes in 
which I have had zeal in all my public life, in the most 
explicit manner. I declared to them that if they con- 
tinued to attend, or any of them wished to attend, my 
church on the supposition that I was going to be silent, 
or prudentially dumb, I wished to remove that impres- 
sion at once, for I intended to be positive, active, and en- 
ergetic on all those subjects. In 1847-48-49 I had become 
well known. My anti-slavery sentiments began to be 
well known in New York. Upon the establishment of 
The Independent I was invited by Mr. Bowen to furnish 
4 Star Papers ' for the paper, and in those I avowed such 
anti-slavery sentiments as made it a little uncertain 
whether the three adjunct editors of the paper — Dr. 
Leonard Bacon, Dr. Richard S. Storrs, and Dr. Joseph 
Thompson, of the Broadway Tabernacle — could sustain 
me. It was a time of very great caution and prudence, 
but I stuck right at it." 

He continued : 

" In 1850, when the controversy came up about Clay's 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. IJI 

Omnibus Bill, including the Fugitive Slave Laws, I was 
thoroughly roused, and in the pulpit and with my pen I 
attacked with the utmost earnestness the infamous Fugi- 
tive Slave Bill. It was then that I wrote that article, 
' Shall we Compromise ? ' If anyone will compare that 
article with Mr. Seward's subsequent speech he will find 
that it was reducing to a mere minimum the article on 
' Shall we Compromise ? ' This article was read to John 
C. Calhoun on his sick-bed by his clerk, and he raised 
himself up and said : ' Read that article again.' The 
article was read. ' The man who says that is right. 
Slavery has got to go to the wall. There is no alterna- 
tive. It is liberty or slavery.' And then, when Webster 
made his fatal apostasy on March 7, 1850, I joined with 
all Northern men of any freedom-loving spirit in de- 
nouncing it and in denouncing him. Forthwith, after a 
paralysis of a few weeks, his friends determined to save 
him by getting all the old clergymen — such men as Dr. 
Spring, Dr. Lord, of Dartmouth, and the Andover Pro- 
fessors. The effort was to get every great and influen- 
tial man in the North to stand up for Webster, and then 
it was that I flamed. They failed utterly. Professor 
Woolsey, of New Haven, Dr. Bacon, President of the 
Williamstown College in Massachusetts, and various 
other most influential men absolutely refused to sustain 
Webster." 

Public installation services occurred on Thursday 



132 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

evening, November n, 1847, which were conducted as 
follows : 

" Invocation and Reading of the Scriptures," by Rev. 
Dr. Heman Humphrey, of Pittsfield, Mass. 

" Sermon," by Rev. Dr. Edward Beecher, of Boston, 
Mass. 

" Installing Prayer," by the Rev. Dr. Nathaniel Hewit, 
of Bridgeport, Conn. 

" Charge to the Pastor," by Rev. D. C. Lansing, of 
New York. 

" The Fellowship of the Churches,'' by Rev. Richard 
S. Storrs, Jr., of Brooklyn. 

" Address to the People," by Rev. Joseph P. Thomp- 
son, of New York. 

" Concluding Prayer," by Rev. Dr. Horace Bushnell, 
of Hartford, Conn. 

"Thus was Plymouth Church founded," says Mr. 
Thompson, " and thus began a ministry which, by ear- 
nest and continued inculcation of sound common-sense 
doctrine, promulgation of tolerant principles, and advance- 
ment of liberal views, was eventually destined to partially 
liberalize the tenets of the entire Christian world." 

On the first day of June, 1848, the success of the new 
enterprise being insured, and its organization being com- 
plete, the property was duly conveyed by the owners to 
the society of Plymouth Church for its actual cost, with 
accrued interest to date. 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 33 

In the fall of this year, Mr. Beecher scored " one of 
his most memorable evenings " (to quote his own words). 
It was at a meeting at the Broadway Tabernacle, in New 
York City, convened for the purpose of raising by sub- 
scription $2,000 for the redemption of two slave-girls, 
the Edmondston sisters. After several addresses only 
$600 was raised, and Mr. Beecher again took the plat- 
form, and by his inspiring eloquence and personal appeals 
to his friends in the vast assemblage, he succeeded in 
eliciting subscriptions in sums varying from $25 to $100, 
until the desired amount had been obtained. 

Alluding to the Edmondston case, Mr. Beecher ob- 
served to a friend : 

" Going home one day, I saw an old negro sitting on 
my outside stone steps. I asked him what he wanted. 
He said he wanted to see Mr. Beecher. I asked him 
into the house, and then he told me that his two daugh- 
ters had been sold to the slave-pen to be carried to New 
Orleans. They were very beautiful girls, and their destiny 
was very apparent. He had gone all around among the 
Methodists, I think, to whom he belonged, and he got 
sympathy, but no succor; so he called to see if I could 
not do something for him. A meeting was called in the 
Broadway Tabernacle. I agreed to be there and make a 
speech. I think that of all the meetings that I have at- 
tended in my life, for a panic of sympathy, I never saw 

one that surpassed that. I have seen a great many in my 
6* 



134 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

day. An amount of money was subscribed, and they 
were bought and set free. The mother was a very old 
woman. She had been the nurse of a great Richmond 
lawyer whose name has died out of my memory. He 
owed his conversion to her. He was famous in the days 
of Webster." 

Mr. Beecher's ministrations proved as attractive as ex- 
pected, and Plymouth Church rapidly increased its mem- 
bership and following, slowly at first, it is true, but surely. 
A blessing in disguise was the destruction by fire of the 
original church buildings in January, 1849, as it enabled 
the society to rebuild on a larger scale, and with a front 
on Orange Street instead of Cranberry Street. Mr. 
Thompson states, in his interesting little volume, " a com- 
mittee was appointed to devise the necessary plans, and 
Mr. Sherman Day, chairman of the committee, drew up 
a rough design which received the approbation of the 
pastor. The projected building was to be 105 feet in 
length, 80 feet in width, and 43 feet in height (floor to 
ceiling) ; with a rear addition, two stories in height and 
50 feet by 80 feet ; the entire structure to be divided 
into eleven rooms, namely : an auditorium with seats for 
2,050 persons (exclusive of aisle or wall chairs), 76 feet 
by 92 feet ; a lecture-room 48 feet by 5 1 feet ; a Sab- 
bath-school room 24 feet by 64 feet ; four rooms for 
Bible and infant classes, each 10 feet by 16 feet ; two 
social circle parlors, each 24 feet by 32 feet ; a recep- 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 35 

tion parlor and a pastor's study, each 14 feet by 32 
feet. 

Mr. J. C. Wells, an English church architect, reduced 
Mr. Day's plan to exact proportions, the society adopted 
it, and May 29, 1849, was the day appointed for laying 
the corner-stone. 

In description of this interesting ceremony, quotations 
from the Brooklyn Daily Advertiser of May 30, 1849, 
are cited : 

" The day was dark, gloomy, wet — anything but pro- 
pitious — causing a serious disappointment to many who 
had anticipated uniting in the exercises of the occasion. 
Notwithstanding that the rain came down in copious quan- 
tities, there were several hundred persons assembled, and 
the services were performed in a highly interesting and 
devout manner. The services were commenced with the 
reading of a hymn by Rev. J. M. Sprague, and singing 
by the choir of the church and the congregation assem- 
bled. Rev. Dr. Cheever followed by reading a very 
beautiful and appropriate selection from the Scriptures. 
Prayer, by Rev. J. P. Thompson, of Broadway Taber- 
nacle. A very eloquent, brief, and impressive address 
was made by Rev. Mr. Storrs, of Pilgrim Church. His 
allusion to the origin of the church, the struggles of the 
Pilgrim fathers, the doctrines and principles which they 
inculcated, the sacredness and nobleness of the object 
which had called them together, the influence which this 



136 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

church must exert in all departments of life, the great 
civil and religious blessings we enjoy, both as individuals 
and as a nation, were themes which the reverend gentle- 
man blended into a highly religious, dignified, and inter- 
esting address. 

" The Rev. J. L. Hodge enumerated a list of the vari- 
ous religious and secular papers enclosed in the box in- 
tended to be placed beneath the initial pillar of the foun- 
dation. 

" The Rev. Dr. Lansing then stated that he had been 
intrusted by the committee to lay the corner-stone of the 
church. The reverend doctor remarked that everyone 
knew the excitability of his temperament, and how gen- 
erally he was disposed to enlarge and amplify on occa- 
sions like the present. He said he had therefore reduced 
his address to writing. He then read the address, which 
was listened to with great attention. 

" Rev. Mr. Thompson followed with a few remarks, 
alluding to the much-regretted absence of the Rev. Dr. 
Cox, now in Boston, who was expected to have been 
present on the occasion. 

" The services were concluded with singing the doxol- 
ogy, ' Praise God,' etc., by the audience, in the tune of 
Old Hundred ; and a benediction by Rev. Mr. Sprague." 

The builders of the church were Solomon Conklin, 
mason ; Tappan Reeve, carpenter ; J. C. Wells, architect. 
The sum of $31,489 was subscribed in amounts varying 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 37 

from $2 to $2,500 (total number of subscribers, 324) tow- 
ard the cost of the new edifice, and $31,127 was collected 
upon seven per cent, scrip, bearing interest payable in pew- 
rents, only, the principal payable from the surplus reve- 
nue of the church. The lecture-room and Sabbath-school 
room were provided for by donations to the amount of 
$10,800, and were furnished partly by the proceeds 
realized by Sunday-school festivals and partly by the 
pew-rent income of the Society. Their cost was about 
$13,000, and that of the church about $36,000. 

While the buildings were in course of erection, the 
Society were cordially invited by many of the neighbor- 
ing Societies to use their respective edifices for worship, 
and for about two months these invitations were thank- 
fully accepted. Their evening services were regularly 
held in the Church of the Pilgrims. In March, 1849, 
Mr. Beecher experienced a serious attack of illness, 
which confined him to his house for two months, and 
incapacitated him from preaching until the ensuing Sep- 
tember. 

In the meantime a Tabernacle, 100 feet in length and 
80 feet in width, had been erected at an expense of 
$2,800, on land (munificently tendered free of rent by 
Lewis Tappan) on Pierrepont Street, and the churchless 
congregation occupied this temporary building until the 
first Sabbath in January, 1850, when they removed to 
their completed church on Orange Street. The Taber- 



138 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

nacle was sold to Mr. A. G. Benson for $1,300, which 
amount, together with Sabbath collections and pew- 
rents, fully covered its cost and all attendant expenses. 
On completion of the church buildings, the entire prop- 
erty was mortgaged for $16,000, partly to pay off the 
original mortgage ($10,500), and partly to liquidate the 
floating debt. 

The opening services occurred on the first Sunday in 
January, 1850. 

The system of renting pews annually to the highest 
bidder was then adopted, and thus all members and reg- 
ular attendants were enabled to secure seats according to 
their respective means. The pastor's salary was, by 
common consent, increased to $3,500 per annum. He 
had originally been engaged on a salary of $1,500 (an 
increase of $700 over his stipend when in Indianapolis) 
for the first year, $1,750 for the second year, and $2,000 
for the third year and succeeding years ; and David Hale 
and Henry C. Bowen had voluntarily guaranteed per- 
sonally the payment of his salary for the first three 
years. In two years and six months the Congregational 
Church, with only twenty-one original members, which 
many had prophesied would come to naught, had in- 
creased — notwithstanding its trial by fire, its subsequent 
migratory life, and the long-continued ill-health of its 
pastor — to a membership of three hundred and forty- 
three, sixteen of which number, however, had been lost 



HE BECOMES PASTOR OF PLYMOUTH CHURCH. 1 39 

by death and removals, thereby leaving a real existing 
membership of three hundred and twenty-seven. 

Mr. Beecher was still suffering from the effects of his 
late illness, and a leave of absence from June to Septem- 
ber (1850) was cheerfully granted to enable him to rest 
from his labors, visit Europe, and, if possible, recuperate 
his delicate health. 

At the time of Mr. Beecher's death, Plymouth Church 
had very nearly two thousand five hundred members, 
more than one hundred times the number that formed 
the original society. 



CHAPTER VI. 

IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 

Back from His Health Trip to Europe. — Plymouth Church and Beecher 
become Synonymous. — The Leading Abolitionist. — Webster's Atti- 
tude in Regard to the Fugitive Slave Bill. — Mr. Beech er's Excoria- 
tion. — Black List of the Union Safety Committee. — He Personally 
beseeches Merchants to stand Firm by Their Principles. — How he 
helped Mr. Bowen. — His Declaration of Principles. — The Fremont 
Campaign. — Wendell Phillips sheltered by Plymouth Church. — The 
Kansas Excitement. — Hostile Declarations from a Mob. — John 
Brown's Insurrection. — Beecher's Address. — John Brown's Chains 
rattled in the Tabernacle. — Few Reporters able to follow Beecher. — 
"Cross Fulton Ferry and follow the Crowd." — Rose Ward. — Rose 
Terry's Contribution. — Sarah is Redeemed. — Continuing the Anti- 
Slavery Crusade. 

Mr. BEECHER returned from his brief trip to Europe 
much improved in health, and entered upon his ministra- 
tions in the new edifice on its completion, and thence- 
forth his name and that of the edifice became household 
and synonymous terms. 

Mr. Beecher led all the Abolitionists in his opposition 
to the Fugitive Slave Law, and he became one of the 
most prominent of the directors of the Underground 
Railroad Company. His congregation were nearly all 
stockholders of the line, and the church has been called 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 141 

its Grand Central Depot. The deviation from the estab- 
lished rules of Gospel preaching, and the opening of the 
pulpit to political discussions, caused much excited de- 
nunciation in orthodox circles. The pluck of the Ply- 
mouth pastor in those times of excitement was unques- 
tioned. After Daniel Webster had delivered his famous 
speech in favor of Mason's Fugitive Slave Bill, and signi- 
fied his intention to vote for it, Mr. Beecher, in his pul- 
pit in Plymouth Church, declared that the " Law of God 
was higher than all other laws, Government or State, 
constitutional or unconstitutional, and must first be 
obeyed." He said from his pulpit : 

" The worst spectacle which this country now presents 
is not, I think, the governmental or political corruptions, 
though these are enormous ; but it is that of a religious 
body, like the one in New York, utterly refusing to open 
its mouth against the blackest iniquity of the age. 

" And for what, in the name of Heaven ? What reason 
do they give for this strange silence ? Why, because, if 
it does speak against sin, it will not be allowed to preach 
the Gospel. If every sin were as powerful as is this sin 
of slavery, what would these preachers of the Gospel do ? 
Keep silence in regard to them all, of course ; for, accord- 
ing to their views, only the smaller and least powerful 
sins can be safely hit. That ponderous body can bom- 
bard men bravely for using tobacco, but it can't say one 
word against selling men and women to raise it. It can 



142 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

spend itself and exert its tremendous machinery against 
the awful sin of the dancing of young men and maidens, 
but can't utter a word when maidens are sold to prosti- 
tution, and young men are driven off, in chain-gangs, to 
the rice swamps of Georgia. 

" The use I make of such men, is to point the young 
men to them and say : ' These are men whom you 
must shun to resemble.' The worst stamp of Pharisee- 
ism was not in our Saviour's day. It has, after years of 
monstrous growth, exhibited itself in the nineteenth 
century. 

" Our citizens have been lynched for the suspicion of 
holding free sentiments ; letters and papers have been re- 
fused a channel in the national mail ; it has been freely 
said, and it was no vain threat, that a lamp-post or tree 
should be that man's rostrum who dared to own abolition- 
ism in Southern territory ; free colored citizens have been 
kidnapped, carried into hopeless slavery from our midst ; 
our ships and boats could not carry colored cooks, stew- 
ards, or sailors, without having their service withheld 
from them; our whole free colored population are denied 
the right of travel and residence in slave States, which 
the Constitution guarantees to all citizens ; they are ar- 
rested if found, and sold, if proved free, to pay jail fees. 

" Man cannot plant parchments as deep as God plants 
principles. The Senate of the United States is august ; 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 143 

and such men as lead her counsels are men of might. 
But no man, and no senate of men, when once the eyes 
of a community are open to a question of humanity, can 
reason or enact them back again to a state of indifference, 
and still less can they enlist them along with the remorse- 
less hunters of human flesh. 

" We solemnly appeal to Christians of every name, to 
ail sober and humane men, unwrenched by party feelings, 
to all that love man, to behold and ponder this iniquity 
which is done among us ! Shall an army of wretched 
victims, without a crime, unconvicted of wrong, pursuing 
honest occupations, be sent back to a loathed and detest- 
able slavery ? Here is no abstract question. We ask 
you, shall men now free, shall members of the church, 
shall children from the school, shall even ministers of the 
Gospel, be seized, ironed, and in two hours be on the 
road to a servitude to them worse than death ? 

" For our own selves, we do not hesitate to say, what 
every man who has a spark of manhood in him will say 
with us, that no force should bring us into such horrible 
bondage. Before we would yield ourselves to go away 
to linger and long for death through burning years of in- 
justice, we would die a thousand deaths. Every house 
should be our fortress ; and when fortress and refuge 
failed us, then our pursuers should release our souls to 
the hands of God who gave them, before they should 



144 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

degrade them by a living slavery ! Who shall deny these 
feelings and such refuge to a black man ? 

"With such solemn convictions, no law, impious, infi- 
del to God and humanity, shall have respect or observ- 
ance at our hands. We desire no collision with it. We 
shall not rashly dash upon it. We shall not attempt a 
rescue, nor interrupt officers, if they do not interrupt us. 
We prefer to labor peaceably for its early repeal, mean- 
while saving from its merciless jaws as many victims as 
we can. But in those provisions which respect aid to 
fugitives, may God do so to us, yea, and more also, if we 
do not spurn it as we would any other mandate of Satan. 

" I will both shelter them, conceal them, or speed their 
flight ; and while under my shelter, or under my convoy, 
they shall be to me as my own flesh and blood ; and 
whatever defence I would put forth for my own children, 
that shall these poor, despised, and persecuted creatures 
havejn my house or upon the road. The man who shall 
betray a fellow-creature to bondage, who shall obey this 
law to the peril of his soul, and to the loss of his manhood, 
were he brother, son, or father, shall never pollute my 
hand with the grasp of hideous friendship ; or cast his 
swarthy shadow across my threshold ! For such service 
to those whose helplessness and poverty make them pe- 
culiarly God's children, I shall cheerfully take the pains 
and penalties of this bill. Bonds and fines shall be hon- 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 145 

ors ; imprisonment and suffering will be passports to fame 
not long to linger ! " 

It was about the time Mr. Beecher first began to de- 
liver set lectures out of town for $50 and his expenses 
that Charles Sumner was struck down in the Senate 
Chamber by Brooks, of South Carolina. The entire 
North was fired with indignation, and the solid mer- 
chants of New York thought that was going too far. A 
mass meeting of protest was called in the Tabernacle, and 
in order to make it significant no one was invited to speak 
who had ever countenanced the anti-slavery movement. 
It was entirely in the hands of conservatives. The chief 
speakers, resolution-readers, and fuglemen were Daniel D. 
Lord, John Van Buren, and William M. Evarts. The 
Tabernacle, which was so frequently in those days his 
rostrum, was packed with an earnest, enthusiastic audi- 
ence, which, in point of numbers and respectability, cult- 
ure and influence, has rarely been surpassed. For some 
reason Mr. Beecher, who had been advertised to lecture 
in Philadelphia that evening, was in the city. He had 
dined with his friend Mr. John T. Howard, and together 
they went to the Tabernacle to hear the speaking. As 
the meeting was about to be closed someone in the audi- 
ence called out " Beecher." The people took up the cry, 
and " Beecher, Beecher ! " resounded through the church. 
Mr. Evarts, evidently annoyed, advanced to the front of 
the platform and said : " The programme of the even- 



146 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ing is concluded, and the meeting will adjourn. [A voice 
— " Beecher ! "] Mr. Beecher, I am told, is lecturing in 
Philadelphia this evening." " No, he isn't," called out one 
of the reporters ; " there he is behind the pillar." The 
greater part of the audience had risen and prepared to 
leave. Beecher was recognized and half led, half forced, 
to the platform, from which Mr. Evarts and his friends 
precipitately retired. John Van Buren, with the instinct 
of a gentleman, advanced, took Mr. Beecher by the hand, 
and led him to the speaker's place. The audience re- 
seated themselves, but for fully five minutes the house 
was in an uproar of enthusiastic greeting. With a wave 
of his hand Mr. Beecher secured silence and attention. 
For an hour he delivered the speech of his life. Every 
eye glistened. Such applause was never given before. 
The occasion was an inspiration. The opportunity was 
one he had never had before. But it is doubtful that he 
thought of either one or the other. He had the scene in 
the Senate Chamber in his eye. It was the culminating 
outrage in a series of horrors. He felt it. He foresaw 
its end. He made that audience feel what he felt and see 
what he saw, and when he closed he glowed like a fur- 
nace, while the people cheered with their throats full of 
tears. Such scenes occur once in a lifetime. The next 
day's papers reported Beecher verbatim, and gave the 
others what they could find space for. 

Mr. Beecher was aroused to a state of great indignation 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 147 

by the threat at a meeting of the so-called Union Safety 
Committee, held at Castle Garden, in 1856, that the 
merchants of New York would be financially ruined by 
those who refused to sell their principles with their wares. 
He addressed the merchants from his pulpit and urged 
them to maintain their principles and the honor of the 
country ; and he personally called on the more promi- 
nent and discussed the subject with them. 

Speaking to a friend of his course in regard to the 
" black list," Mr. Beecher said : 

" It was about this time that the black list was made 
in that Castle Garden Union Safety Committee, and 
connected with that was a black list that was gotten up 
of all the merchants that were anti-slavery. It was 
to be sent all over the South to destroy their custom. 
Mr. Bowen was, of course, included in that black list, and 
threatened with the loss of all his Southern custom. He 
came to me and asked me if I would not write a card for 
him, and I undertook to do it, but my head not running 
very clear, the only thing I got at after making three or 
four different attempts was, ' My goods are for sale, but 
not my principles,' but I could not lick it into shape, and 
I gave the paper to him and said, * You must fix it to 
suit yourself.' He took it to Hiram Barney, and he 
drew up the card in the shape in which it appeared, in- 
cluding that sentence, which was the snap of the whole 
thing." 



14% LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher always made it a practice now to discuss 
national affairs in his Sunday evening discourses, and 
in announcing the annual sale of pews he was in the 
habit " of clearly and unmistakably expressing his views 
upon slavery and other practical reforms of the day, for 
the especial purpose of forewarning all those who con- 
templated renting sittings for the ensuing year of the 
general tenor of his preaching, and the application he 
should make of it to the great issues of the time, so that 
none could have reasonable grounds for complaint or dis- 
satisfaction with his course." 

He said on one of these occasions : 

" The infidelity of the last twenty-five years has been 
that which has sought to emasculate religion by separat- 
ing it from practical life and lifting it so far above every- 
body's daily and familiar use that they might as well be 
without it. The pretence is, that religion is too sacred 
to be rendered useful in common matters. Over church 
doors men write : ' Religion is religion ; ' and over store 
doors : ' Business is business.' And the Church says to 
business : ' Don't you come in here ; ' and the store says 
to religion : ' Don't you come in here / ' 

" Man rejects the interference of the higher law in his 
business as impertinence. But when Sunday comes, he 
says, ' We've had enough of business all the week ; now 
let us have the blessed Gospel.' 

" And the minister confines himself to ' Christ and Him 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 149 

crucified.' He mustn't mention love to God and man 
shown in business transactions, for he must preach the 
Gospel; he mustn't exhort to temperance, for he must 
preach the Gospel ; he mustn't preach of justice, purity, 
and humanity, for he must preach the Gospel. 

" Why, if men catch ' the higher law ' on 'change, or 
in the street, they hoot at it, they chase it, they hit it, 
and drive it from among them, crying out : ' Here is the 
higher law escaped out of church, and out of Sunday.' " 

Speaking of this exciting period, Mr. Beecher remarked 
to a friend : 

"This takes down to 1853. Then came the bolt of 
the elder Van Buren and the Buffalo meeting and plat- 
form, which was anti-slavery, and that was really the 
originating cause of the Republican Party. The mate- 
rials were beginning to coalesce which constituted the 
Republican movement, and in 1856 Fremont was nom- 
inated as against Buchanan. Well, of course we felt all 
aflame. My church voted me all the time that I thought 
to be required to go out into the community and speak 
and canvass the State of New York. I went into that 
canvass, spoke twice and three times, sometimes, a week, 
having the whole day to myself; that is, making all the 
speeches that were made. I was sent principally to what 
we called the Silver Gray districts or counties — the old- 
time Whigs that were attempting to run a candidate be- 
tween Fremont and Buchanan. I generally made a three 



I50 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

hours' speech a day in the open air to audiences of from 
eight thousand to ten thousand people. I felt at that 
time that it was very likely that I should sacrifice my 
life, or my voice, at any rate, but I was willing to lay 
down either or both of them for that cause." 

" During the succeeding years of agitation," says Mr. 
Thompson, " Plymouth Church was one of the few tem- 
ples of free thought, opinion, and speech in this land of 
boasted liberty. So bitter was the hate for Abolitionists, 
that at one time it was impossible to obtain a hall in 
New York or Brooklyn wherein Wendell Phillips might 
speak. Mr. Beecher, becoming cognizant of the fact, 
immediately visited the trustees of Plymouth Church in 
person, and procured permission for Mr. Phillips to speak 
in the church — not because he was a believer in all the 
doctrine advanced by the great agitator, but because he 
was a believer in Free Speech. As disturbances were not 
only anticipated but threatened, the trustees, in accord- 
ance with a request of the pastor, attended the meeting 
armed with heavy canes, and the city authorities, in com- 
pliance with a demand, furnished a police force. Hap- 
pily, however, there was no trouble. 

" Throughout the Kansas settlement struggle the right 
of every ' Free State ' settler to defend himself and his 
rights, with arms if necessary, from the incursions and 
aggressions of the ' Border Ruffians,' was vindicated from 
Plymouth pulpit. The pastor himself subscribed a suf- 



IN THE ANTI SLAVERY CRUSADE. 151 

ficient amount for the purchase of a Sharp's rifle and a 
Bible, and the congregation expressed its hearty concur- 
rence by a liberal subscription to aid in supplying all set- 
tlers with those commodities. 

" The hate of the lower and more ignorant classes of 
New York City for Plymouth Church and its pastor was 
intense; and one Sunday morning (June 8th) in 1856 
the New York journals announced that a gang of roughs 
from Washington Market intended visiting Brooklyn 
that evening, for the especial purpose of ' cleaning out 
the d d Abolition nest at Plymouth Church,' and for- 
ever dispensing with the services of 'Beecher.' This 
startling intelligence naturally caused considerable excite- 
ment among the Plymouthites, and they determined to 
prepare for emergencies. The mayor and the chief of 
police were immediately notified of the threatened raid, 
and a large police force was ordered to report, in citizen's 
attire, at the church that evening. In addition to this, 
some fifty gentlemen, regular attendants, among whom 
were some of the trustees, also armed themselves with 
revolvers before going > to evening services. Shortly be- 
fore the church doors were thrown open that night crowds 
of roughs congregated on the neighboring corners, but 
offered no remark or violence to anyone, and when the 
church was opened many of them entered and quietly 
seated themselves. Either there had been no intention 
to create any disturbance, or they had in some way 



152 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

learned of the reception awaiting them and wisely con- 
cluded to give up or postpone their intended demonstra- 
tion ; for they soon passed into the street again, and, 
after muttering curses upon all ' Abolitionists and nigger- 
worshippers,' formed in procession and returned to New 
York. During the services, while each one of the im- 
mense crowd was nervously watching and waiting for a 
something they knew not what, and at a moment when 
the entire audience were held in breathless silence by the 
eloquence of the pastor, some object hurled from without 
struck a pane of glass in the rear window, on the east 
side of the pulpit, and broke it ; a bullet dropped upon 
the window-sill, probably by some mischievous boy, and 
for a moment there was a commotion among the people 
near the window, then all was again quiet. The services 
were not otherwise disturbed, and no more invasions were 
thereafter threatened." 

In 1859 occurred the unlawful invasion of a Slave 
State for the avowed purpose of liberating its slaves, by 
John Brown and his associates — an attempt, though 
really insignificant from a numerical point of view, which 
aroused and imbittered the entire South against the 
North, for pro-slavery men thereupon naturally con- 
cluded that Brown was secretly encouraged and abetted 
by the Abolitionists of the North. The erroneousness of 
this conclusion was clearly demonstrated in a sermon en- 
titled " The Nation's Duty to Slavery," in which Brown's 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. J 53 

entire career was reviewed, and from which some extracts 
are here presented : 

" An old man, kind at heart, industrious, peaceful, 
went forth, with a large family of children, to seek a new 
home in Kansas. That infant colony held thousands of 
souls as noble as ever liberty inspired or religion enriched. 
A great scowling Slave State, its nearest neighbor, sought 
to tread down the liberty-loving colony, and to dragoon 
slavery into it by force of arms. The armed citizens of 
a hostile State crossed the State lines, destroyed the 
freedom of the ballot-box, prevented a fair expression of 
public sentiment, corruptly usurped law-making power, 
and ordained by fraud laws as infamous as the sun ever 
saw ; assaulted its infant settlements with armed hordes, 
ravaged the fields, destroyed harvests and herds, and 
carried death to a multitude of cabins. The United 
States Government had no marines for this occasion ! 
No Federal troops posted by the cars by night and day 
for the poor, the weak, the grossly wronged men of Kan- 
sas. There was an army there that unfurled the ban- 
ner of the Union, but it was on the side of the wrong- 
doers, not on the side of the injured. 

" It was in this field that Brown received his impulses. 
A tender father, whose life was in his son's life, he saw 
his first-born seized like a felon, chained, driven across 
the country, crazed by suffering and heat, beaten like a 
dog by the officer in charge, and long lying at death's 



154 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

door ! Another noble boy, without warning, without of- 
fence, unarmed, in open day, in the midst of the city, was 
shot dead ! No justice sought out the murderers ; no 
United States attorney was despatched in hot haste ; no 
marines or soldiers aided the wronged or weak ! 

" The shot that struck the child's heart crazed the fa- 
ther's brain. Revolving his wrongs, and nursing his hatred 
to that deadly system that breeds such contempt of justice 
and humanity, at length his phantoms assume a slender 
reality, and organize such an enterprise as one might ex- 
pect from a man whom grief had bereft of judgment. 
He goes to the heart of a Slave State. One man — and 
with sixteen followers, he seizes two thousand brave 
Virginians, and holds them in duress ! 

" When a great State attacked a handful of weak colo- 
nists, the Government and nation were torpid, but when 
seventeen men attack a sovereign State, then Maryland 
arms, and Virginia arms, and the United States Govern- 
ment arms, and they three rush against seventeen men. 

" Travellers tell us that the Geysers of Iceland — those 
irregular boiling springs of the north — may be trans- 
ported with fury by plucking up a handful of grass or 
turf and throwing it into the springs. The hot springs 
of Virginia are of the same kind ! A handful of men 
was thrown into them, and what a boiling there has 
been ! 

" But, meanwhile, no one can fail to see that this poor, 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 1 55 

child-bereft old man is the manliest of them all. Bold, 
unflinching, honest, without deceit or evasion, refusing 
to take technical advantages of any sort, but openly 
avowing his principles and motives, glorying in them in 
danger and death, as much as when in security — that 
wounded old father is the most remarkable figure in 
the whole drama. The Governor, the officers of the 
State, and all the attorneys are pygmies compared with 
him. 

" I deplore his misfortunes. I sympathize with his 
sorrows. I mourn the hiding or obscuration of his rea- 
son. I disapprove of his mad and feeble schemes. I 
shrink from the folly of the bloody foray, and I shrink 
likewise from all anticipation of that judicial bloodshed 
which doubtless erelong will follow ; for when was cow- 
ardice ever magnanimous ? 

" If they kill the man, it will not be so much for trea- 
son as for the disclosure of their cowardice ! 

" Let no man pray that Brown be spared. Let Vir- 
ginia make him a martyr. Now, he has only blundered. 
His soul was noble, his work miserable. But a cord and 
a gibbet would redeem all that, and round up Brown's 
failure with heroic success. 

" Because it [slavery] is a great sin, because it is a 
national curse, it does not follow that we have a right to 
say anything or do anything about it that may happen 



156 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to please us. We certainly have no right to attack it in 
any manner that may gratify men's fancies or passions. 
It is computed that there are four million colored slaves 
in our nation. These dwell in fifteen different South- 
ern States, with a population of ten million whites. 
These sovereign States are united to us not merely by 
federal ligaments, but by vital interests, by a common 
national life. And the question of duty is not simply 
what is duty toward the blacks, not what is duty toward 
the whites, but what is duty to each and to both united. 
I am bound by the great law of love to consider my 
duties toward the slave, and I am bound by the great 
law of love also to consider my duties toward the white 
man, who is his master ! Both are to be treated with 
Christian wisdom and forbearance. . . . We must 
keep in mind the interest of every part. . . . It is 
harder to define what would be just in certain emergen- 
cies than to establish the duty, claims, and authority of 
justice. . . . We have no right to treat the citizens 
of the South with acrimony or bitterness, because they 
are involved in a system of wrong-doing. Wrong is to 
be exposed. But the spirit of rebuke may be as wicked 
before God as the spirit of the evil rebuked. ... If 
we hope to ameliorate the condition of the slave, the 
first step must not be taken by setting the master against 
him. . . . 

" The breeding of discontent among the bondmen of 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 1 57 

our land is not the way to help them. Whatever gloomy 
thoughts the slave's own mind may brood, we are not to 
carry disquiet to him from without. . . . The evil 
is not partial. It cannot be cured by partial remedies. 
Our plans must include a universal change in. policy, 
feeling, purpose, theory, and practice in the whole na- 
tion. . . . 

" No relief will be afforded to the slaves of the South, 
as a body, by any individual ; or by any organized plan 
to carry them off, or to incite them to abscond. . . . 

" We have no right to carry into the midst of slavery 
exterior discontent. . . . It is short-sighted human- 
ity, at best, and poor policy for both blacks and whites. 

" Still less would we tolerate anything like insurrec- 
tion and servile war. It would be the most cruel, hope- 
less, and desperate of all conceivable follies to seek eman- 
cipation by the sword and by blood." '. . . 

Mr. Beecher created a great sensation by an address 
he delivered at the Broadway Tabernacle in New York 
City. The chains that had bound John Brown in his 
captivity were placed on the desk before him, and in- 
spired him to one of his most eloquent and thrilling ap- 
peals in behalf of human liberty. In the frenzy of his 
eloquence he seized the clanking irons and hurled them 
to the floor, and stamped upon them, and awakened a 
sentiment in his vast audience that filled the place in 
7* 



158 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

every part, that was lasting, and which took flight across 
the whole anti-slavery section of the country. 

Fragmentary reports of Mr. Beecher's sermons ap- 
peared in the daily papers, but in his flights of eloquence 
the average reporter could not follow him, and often he 
was misrepresented or garbled to an exasperating degree. 
Mr. T. J. Ellinwood, a stenographer who was found to 
be able to follow him, was accommodated with a desk, 
and thenceforth until his death always reported him. 

The popularity of the church was now so well estab- 
lished throughout the land that crowds crossed the ferry 
from New York to attend. The usual answer given to 
strangers in New York, inquiring the way to Beecher's 
church on Sunday morning, was : " Cross Fulton Ferry 
and follow the crowd." Standing room was always at a 
premium, and scarcely a Sabbath passed when hundreds 
were not turned away for want of even standing room. 

Rev. Bishop Faulkner invoked Mr. Beecher's aid in 
raising the sum of $900 to purchase an intelligent-look- 
ing mulatto girl, about ten years of age, whom he brought 
from Washington, D. C, with him, with the owner's per- 
mission to make the sale. On Sunday, February 5, 
i860, she accompanied Mr. Beecher to church, and was 
placed by his side in the pulpit. Mr. Beecher presented 
her to the congregation, stated the facts of the case, and 
asked for a contribution sufficient to effect her purchase. 
Among the audience was a lady named Rose Terry, who, 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. l6l 

when the contribution-box was passed to her, drew a 
ring from her finger and dropped it in ; the pastor placed 
this ring upon one of the slave-girl's fingers, and, telling 
her it was her freedom ring, named her Rose Ward, after 
the donor of the ring and himself. The amount contrib- 
uted that morning, together with a collection taken up 
in Sunday-school that afternoon, was $1,000. 

A similar instance of the sympathy and generosity of 
the Plymouth congregation occurred on Sunday, June I, 
1861. A young slave woman, twenty years of age, 
named Sarah, having been informed by her owner that 
if she could raise $800 among her abolition friends he 
would accept of it and free her, had made the fact 
known to several anti-slavery men in Washington. They 
pledged her owner either her safe return or the required 
sum, and he allowed them to take her to the North. A 
few days after her arrival in New York she was taken to 
Mr. Beecher, and on the following Sabbath morning was 
escorted to his pulpit in Brooklyn. She was a woman 
of commanding presence, rounded features, and winning 
face and long, jet-black hair, and of course, under the cir- 
cumstances, attracted most eager attention and interest 
from the large and wealthy congregation assembled. 
She was requested to unloosen her hair, and as she did 
so it fell in glistening waves over her shoulders and be- 
low her waist. Robed in spotless white, her face crim- 
soned and form heaving under the excitement of the oc- 



l62 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

casion, she stood in that august presence a very Venus 
in form and feature. For a moment Mr. Beecher re- 
mained by her side without uttering a word, until the 
audience was wrought up to a high pitch of curiosity 
and excitement. And then in his impressive way he re- 
lated her story and her mission. Before he concluded 
his pathetic recital the vast audience was a sea of com- 
motion. Tears ran down cheeks unused to the melting 
mood, eager curiosity aud excitement pervaded the whole 
congregation, and as the pastor announced that he 
wanted $2,000 for the girl before him to redeem her 
promise to pay for her freedom, costly jewellery and trin- 
kets and notes and specie piled in in such rapid succession 
that in less time than it takes to write this down enough 
and much more was contributed than was necessary to 
meet the call that had been made. 

Since Mr. Beecher's death the sequel of the story has 
been ascertained. Mrs. Angelina Harris says that she 
has known the girl long and intimately. 

" I was in Plymouth Church," said Mrs. Harris, " the 
night Sarah was brought upon the platform and stood 
beside Mr. Beecher. The church was packed full of peo- 
ple. Sarah was then not more than twenty-two or twenty- 
three years of age. She was tall and finely moulded, 
and as white as any lady. Yes, before Mr. Beecher had 
said a word the money began coming out of folks' pockets. 

" After she was free, the ladies of the church wrote a 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 1 63 

little book, in which a full account of her life was given. 
With the money that was obtained from the sale of this 
they bought a little place for her at Peekskill, where she 
raised fowls and sold eggs and butter for a living. She 
is living there still, I think, although I have not seen her 
for many years, but is now an old woman. She is about 
fifty years of age. Sarah was known as both Sarah 
Scheffer and Sarah Churchman. I have heard her called 
by both names. She never married. She was never tired 
of talking about how good Mr. Beecher and his family 
had been to her." 

Mrs. Harris said that she had worked for some time with 
Mrs. Scoville, Mr. Beecher's daughter, at Stamford, Conn. 

When the booming of rebel cannon in Charleston Har- 
bor resounded throughout the country, proving that the 
threats of armed disunion had not been — as was supposed 
— those of mere braggadocio, and that all predictions of 
peaceful settlement of existing difficulties were but hope- 
less dreams ; when many of the greatest minds of the 
North — almost staggered by the unexpected blow — were 
wavering in opinion whether to maintain the Union at 
all hazards, or " let the wayward sisters go in peace " — 
then was the voice of Plymouth Church raised, Sunday, 
April 14, 1 861, fearlessly denouncing the actions of the 
secessionists, and urging energetic and decisive measures 
on the part of the Administration, crying : 

" We must not stop to measure costs — especially the 



1 64 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

costs of going forward — on any basis so mean and 
narrow as that of pecuniary prosperity. . . . There 
are many reasons which make a good and thorough 
battle necessary. The Southern men are infatuated. 
They will not have peace. They are in arms. They 
have fired upon the American flag. That glorious 
banner has been borne through every climate, all 
over the globe, and for fifty years not a land or people 
has been found to scorn it or dishonor it. At home, 
among the degenerate people of our own land, among 
Southern citizens, for the first time, has this glorious 
national flag been abused, and trampled to the ground. 
It is for our sons reverently to lift it, and to bear 
it full high again, to victory and national suprem- 
acy! Our arms, in this peculiar exigency, can lay the 
foundation of future union in mutual respect. The 
South firmly believes that cowardice is the universal at- 
tribute of Northern men ! Until they are most thor- 
oughly convinced to the contrary, they will never cease 
arrogancy and aggression. . . . Good soldiers, brave 
men, hard fighting, will do more toward quiet than all 
the compromises and empty, wagging tongues in the 
world. Our reluctance to break peace, our unwilling- 
ness to shed blood, our patience, have all been misin- 
terpreted. The more we have been generous and for- 
bearing, the more thoroughly were they sure that it was 
because we dared not fight ! . . . 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 165 

" We have no braggart courage ; we have no courage 
that rushes into an affray for the love of fighting. We have 
that courage which comes from calm intelligence. We have 
that courage which comes from broad moral sentiment. 

" We have no anger, but we have indignation. We 
have no irritable passion, but we have fixed will. . . . 

"We must aim at a peace built on foundations so 
solid, of God's immutable truth, that nothing can reach 
to unsettle it. Let this conflict between liberty and slav- 
ery never come up again. Better have it thoroughly 
settled, though it take a score of years to settle it, than 
to have an intermittent fever for the next century, break- 
ing out every five or ten years. . . 

" Let not our feelings be vengeful or savage. We can 
go into this conflict with a spirit just as truly Christian 
as any that ever inspired us in the performance of a 
Christian duty. . . . 

" Let no man, then, in this time of peril, fail to asso- 
ciate himself with that cause, which is to be so entirely 
glorious. . . . Let every man that lives and owns 
himself an American take the side of true American 
principles — liberty for one, and liberty for all ; liberty 
now, and liberty forever ; liberty as the foundation of 
government, and liberty as the basis of union ; liberty as 
against revolution, liberty against anarchy, and liberty 
against slavery ; liberty here, and liberty everywhere, the 
world through ! " . . . 



166 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher never failed to deliver a stirring address 
or sermon on the terrible crime of human slavery when- 
ever the occasion offered, until the initiation of the re- 
bellion by the attack on Fort Sumter enlisted his sym- 
pathies in behalf of the war for the Union, when he 
devoted himself as enthusiastically to firing the Northern 
heart and sending regiments to the front as he had to 
the cause of the negro slave, whose cause he never forgot 
to urge in claiming that the war was waged by the South 
for the purpose of maintaining their " peculiar and vile 
institution." 

" Beecher developed from a local into a national char- 
acter," says Thomas G. Shearman, "in the year 1850. 
The slavery question was causing great excitement, and 
Clay had proposed his compromise, while Calhoun, on 
the part of the South, was strongly opposing all compro- 
mise. So also was the Northern anti-slavery party, and 
it was just at this time that Mr. Beecher became decid- 
edly famous. The Journal of Commerce had published 
an article threatening that the clergymen who meddled 
with slavery would have their coats rolled in the dirt. 
That aroused all the spirit that was in Beecher. He 
challenged the editor of that paper to a debate in the 
newspapers, which was carried on for some time, 
Beecher writing in The Independent, which was at that 
time edited by Dr. Storrs and Dr. Leonard Bacon. His 
articles were so felicitous and effective that they attracted 



IN THE ANTI-SLAVERY CRUSADE. 167 

universal attention, and John C. Calhoun had them read 
to him while on his death-bed, and pronounced them 
the ablest articles on the subject ever written, saying 
repeatedly, ' That man understands the subject. He has 
the true idea.' Of course, he did not mean to approve 
Beecher's views on slavery, but that he heartily approved 
of his argument that it was impossible to compromise the 
question. This occurrence was published soon afterward 
in a very graphic manner by Calhoun's private secretary, 
and it gave Beecher a really national reputation, making 
him known as well in the South as he had been in the 
North. 

" When Mrs. Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' was pub- 
lished in 1852, Henry Ward Beecher had become so well 
known that thousands of people in the country were 
foolish enough to believe that he had written the book 
for her. On the other hand, Mrs. Stowe's name became 
so famous in England, that for many years, when the 
English papers spoke of Mr. Beecher, they were accus- 
tomed to mention him as Mr. Beecher Stowe. 

"It was in 1856, when the slavery excitement was 
more intense than ever, that the famous Sharp's rifle 
scene took place. The people of Kansas had been left 
to fight out the question of slavery among themselves. 
The Missourians were naturally the first on the ground, 
and brought their slaves with them, but a number of 
colonies were organized in New England, Ohio, and the 



168 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

West, who, of course, were strongly opposed to slavery. 
The Missouri emigrants regarded the Northern ones as 
intruders, and, being accustomed to the use of arms, pro- 
ceeded to drive them out. The Northern men there- 
upon appealed to their friends to send them arms for 
self-defence. A colony was being organized in Connecti- 
cut, and a great meeting was held at New Haven to 
raise subscriptions with the avowed purpose of providing 
the colonists with rifles. Mr. Beecher was there, and 
made a very stirring speech, insisting on the right of 
Northern men to stand up in self defence. A subscrip- 
tion being called for, the Senior Class of Yale College 
announced that they would subscribe $50 to buy one 
rifle. Henry Killam, a carriage manufacturer, gave his 
name as a subscriber for another rifle. It was then that 
Mr. Beecher said, ' Killam ! That's a significant name,' 
a remark which brought out great laughter and applause, 
and which was the origin of many fierce attacks upon 
him for years afterward." 



CHAPTER VII. 

IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 

Recruiting. — First Long Island Regiment. — The Brooklyn Fourteenth. — > 
Pets of Plymouth Church. — The Boys Attend Service. — "The Na- 
tional Flag." — An Eloquent Patriotic Appeal. — Applause in Church 
Rebuked. — Plymouth Church Barracks. — The Maine Regiment. — 
Church Parlors Occupied as a Hospital. — Visits to the Boys in Camp. 
— A Welcome Visitor. — Patriotic Editorials. — Relations with Secre- 
tary Stanton. — The National Fast. — Freedom of the People. — An 
Intellectual Disquisition. — His Visit to England. — His Invaluable 
Services as a Defender of the Union. — The Fort Sumter Celebration. 
— A Pleasant Reunion of Old-Time Friends. — The Restored Union. — 
The Key-note to Beecher's Future Course in Regard to the South. — 
Startling News. — Lincoln's Assassination. — Beecher's Grief. — The 
Funeral Oration. — The Martyr President. 

Mr. Beecher not only spoke on every occasion in de- 
fence of the Union, but also actively engaged in organ- 
izing and equipping the First Long Island (Infantry) 
Regiment, known as the " Brooklyn Phalanx," which 
was largely recruited from the members of Plymouth 
Church. His son Henry was an officer of one of the 
companies. Two companies of the famous crack regi- 
ment of Brooklyn, the brave Colonel Wood's Fourteenth, 
were also recruited from Plymouth Church. These two 
companies attended service, and after an eloquent ad- 



170 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

dress on " The National Flag" by Mr. Beecher, $3,000 was 
raised by subscription to aid in completing the equip- 
ment of the regiment. 

This address is probably one of Mr. Beecher's most 
eloquent appeals, and was as follows : 

" A thoughtful mind, when it sees a nation's flag, sees 
not the flag, but the nation itself. And whatever may 
be its symbols, its insignia, he reads chiefly in the flag 
the government, the principles, the truths, the history 
that belong to the nation that sets it forth. . . . 

" This nation has a banner, too ; and until recently, 
wherever it streamed abroad, men saw daybreak bursting 
on their eyes. For until lately the American flag has 
been a symbol of Liberty, and men rejoiced in it. Not 
another flag on the globe had such an errand, or went 
forth upon the sea, carrying everywhere, the world around, 
such hope to the captive, and such glorious tidings. The 
stars upon it were to the pining nations like the bright 
morning stars of God, and the stripes upon it were beams 
of morning light. As at early dawn the stars shine forth 
even while it grows light, and then as the sun advances 
that light breaks into banks and streaming lines of color, 
the glowing red and intense white striving together, and 
ribbing the horizon with bars effulgent, so, on the Ameri- 
can flag, stars and beams of many-colored light shine out 
together. . . . It is the banner of Dawn. It means 
Liberty. . . . Beginning with the Colonies, and com- 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 171 

ing down to our time, in its sacred heraldry, in its glori- 
ous insignia, it has gathered and stored chiefly this su- 
preme idea : Divine right of liberty in man. 

" And displayed it shall be. Advanced full against 
the morning light, and borne with the growing and glow- 
ing day, it shall take the last ruddy beams of the night, 
and from the Atlantic wave, clear across with eagle flight 
to the Pacific, that banner shall float, meaning all the 
liberty which it has ever meant ! From the North, where 
snows and mountain-ice stand solitary, clear to the glow- 
ing tropics and the Gulf, that banner that has hitherto 
waved shall wave and wave forever — every star, every 
band, every thread and fold significant of Liberty! 
[Great applause.] I do not doubt your patriotism. I 
know it is hard for men that are full of feeling not to give 
expression to it ; yet excuse me if I request you to re- 
frain from demonstrations of applause while I am speak- 
ing. It is not because I think Sunday too good a day, 
nor the church too holy a place for patriotic Christian 
men to express their feelings at such a time as this, and 
in behalf of such sentiments, but because by too frequent 
repetition applause becomes stale and common, that I 
make this request. Besides, outward expression is not 
our way. We are rather of a silent stock. We let our 
feelings work inwardly, so that they may have deeper 
channels and fuller floods. . . . 



172 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" How glorious, then, has been its origin ! How glori- 
ous has been its history ! How divine its meaning ! 
. . . made by liberty, made for liberty, nourished in 
its spirit, carried in its service, and never, not once in all 
the earth, made to stoop to despotism ! 

" And now this banner has been put on trial ! It has 
been condemned. For what ? Has it failed of duty ? 
Has liberty lost color by it ? Have moths of oppression 
eaten its folds ? Has it refused to shine on freemen and 
given its light to despots? No. It has been true, 
brave, loyal. It has become too much a banner of lib- 
erty for men who mean and plot despotism. Remember, 
citizen ! remember, Christian soldier ! the American flag 
has been fired upon by Americans, and trodden down 
because it stood in the way of slavery ! 

" And now God speaks by the voice of His providence, 
saying, ' Lift again that banner ! Advance it full and 
high ! ' To your hand, and to yours, God and your 
country commit that imperishable trust. You go forth, 
self-called, or rather called by the trust of your country- 
men, and by the Spirit of your God, to take that trailing 
banner out of the dust and out of the mire, and lift it 
again where God's rains can cleanse it, and where God's 
free air can cause it to unfold and stream as it has always 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 173 

floated before the wind. God bless the men that go forth 
to save from disgrace the American flag ! 

" Nor is it enough that that banner shall stand and 
merely reassert its authority. It is time now that that 
banner shall do as much for each man in our own country 
as it will in every other land on the globe. . . . 

" You go to serve your country in the cause of liberty ; 
and if God brings you into conflict erelong with those 
misguided men of the South, when you see their miser- 
able, new-vamped banner, remember what that flag 
means — Treason, Slavery, Despotism ; then look up 
and see the bright stars and the glorious stripes over your 
own head, and read in them Liberty, Liberty, Liberty ! 

" And if you fall in that struggle, may some kind hand 
wrap around about you the flag of your country, and may 
you die with its sacred touch upon you ! It shall be 
sweet to go to rest lying in the folds of your country's 
banner, meaning, as it shall mean, ' Liberty and Union, 
now and forever.' . . ." 

In the autumn of 1862 a Maine regiment arrived in 
Brooklyn en route to the front, and all the barracks in 
this vicinity being occupied, Mr. Beecher offered them the 
shelter of Plymouth Church. The steady increase of the 
Sunday-school, which kept pace with that in the church, 
had necessitated frequent additions, and in 1862 a new 
building was erected by a subscription of $10,800 on the 



174 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

property of the organization on Cranberry Street, giving a 
large parlor for the social meetings as well as larger school 
accommodations. The regiment was quartered here two 
days, sleeping on the cushioned seats in the church and 
occupying the parlors by day. 

The march of the regiment had been in a chilly rain, 
and many were sick from the effects of colds contracted, 
and they were quartered in the parlors for four weeks, at- 
tended by the surgeons. A sewing society was organized 
by the ladies of the church, to supply the army hospitals 
with various necessary articles, as well as for the desti- 
tute freedmen from the South, who were always remem- 
bered by Mr. Beecher in his prayers and sermons. This 
sewing society, it may be observed, has always been con- 
tinued in aid of the poor of the church, and a branch in- 
structs the children of the poor in sewing, both by hand 
and by machine. 

Mr. Beecher' preached in Plymouth Church, May i, 
1863, on the occasion of " The National Fast," a sermon 
on " The Freedom of the Common People." The text 
was as follows : 

" Go through, go through the gates ; prepare ye the 
way of the people ; cast up the highway ; gather out the 
stones ; lift up a standard for the people." He said that 
it seemed strange to hear sounding back, so far back, 
this declaration of the Christian doctrine of Democracy, 
" lift up a standard for the people? 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 175 

. m 
This nation, above all others, was raised up to expound 

and exhibit the prosperity of a free, intelligent common 
people. The ancient attempts at free government were 
based more on the liberty of the State than upon the 
elevation, by freedom, of individual citizens. There were 
almost insuperable reasons why, at a former period in 
other lands, this experiment could not be tried. Our 
ante-Revolutionary period might be considered the trial 
trip of Republicanism. Had European statesmen, with 
malign foresight, seen development of the spirit of liberty 
here, they would have saddled upon us institutions which 
would have crippled, if they had not ended, our experi- 
ment of free government ; but luckily they looked upon 
this country as a good safety-valve to Europe. When they 
saw the probable power developing on this continent, it 
was too late for them to interfere. Now, in the division 
of this empire against itself, they believed that to them 
was opened a new opportunity. Though they had stricken 
hands in substantial sympathy with the internal enemies 
of our country, it was a part of a scheme — too long de- 
layed for success — to estop the development of our great 
people. 

Should the experiment succeed, God had graciously 
given room enough for its expansion on a grand scale. It 
was fortunate that the populations of Europe did not at 
first swarm over here indiscriminately ; but now that our 
institutions were established, our industries organized, 



176 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

they could come — they were mainly the young and en- 
terprising — and fall into this people as drops of water fall 
into the ocean, and in a moment are salt. We moulded 
them, not they us. The influence of this nation by ex- 
ample upon human rights was greater than all other agen- 
cies ; it was the silent voice of prosperity, that pleaded and 
had no respondent. One of our reasons of confession and 
repentance was that the people had ceased to regard this 
Government as a gift of God for the good of mankind, 
and had come to view it almost wholly from selfishness, 
and in its relations to their own immediate good. This 
was not patriotism, but was full of inevitable corruption. 
In fifty years this nation had plunged into gainful enter- 
prises with a power and success which had almost ma- 
terialized it. 

In some respects it had been beneficial ; for indirectly 
it had by industry, order, and prosperity promoted moral- 
ity. But it had tended to substitute the love of gain 
and wealth for right, for justice, for magnanimity. An 
incipient plutocracy was springing up, tending to augment 
the power of a class at the expense of the public good. 
One of the most alarming dangers to-day was the power 
and facility of bribery — the vote hung in the shambles. 
It corrupted national, state, and municipal legislation. 
The doctrine of liberty for the common people — an en- 
thusiasm, a fanaticism, almost, in our early history — had 
gradually decayed. The doctrine of liberty for the com- 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. IJJ 

mon people had brought more threats to its champions 
than ever did all the tyranny of Europe. He claimed 
the right, in the name of his Lord and Master, to call the 
slave his brother. Talk about the abuse of slavery — it 
was not in the power of fiendish ingenuity to abuse it. 
Slavery never could be worked up to the pressure it was 
gauged for in the law. It says you may put so many 
pounds to the inch, but there was not an engineer in the 
South who would dare to run the system up to what the 
law allows. 

Four millions of human beings were by American law 
denuded of manhood. Children through the South as 
sweet as theirs, and as white, were brought up expressly 
'for concubinage. There was but one class toward whom 
he could not feel pity — they were hoary and reverend 
presidents of colleges, who spent their years trying to 
make their pupils believe it was right to hold men in 
slavery — when they took Calvary for their infernal pur- 
pose, and the drops of blood — then, said Mr. Beecher, " I 
have no mercy, I am adamant, I curse them in the name 
of my God. [Applause.] What an awful terror must 
rest on their conscience, that they have taken the blood 
of atonement that they might sanctify and seal man over 
to the devil therewith." [Sensation.] God had opened 
the prison doors, and we had come to the times that 
would try men's souls. But if the people were true to 
the faith of their fathers, there would come emancipation, 



178 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and liberty would be fixed forever. The signs of the 
times were growing brighter. The sun of liberty had 
not risen, but it was daylight in the heavens. 

The services, which occupied about two hours, con- 
cluded with singing and benediction. The church was 
crowded to its utmost. 

Mr. Beecher visited the regiments he had been so active 
in equipping at their headquarters in the Army of the Po- 
tomac. His presence, it is almost needless to say, always 
excited great enthusiasm, and inspired the boys with pa- 
triotic ardor. He never missed an occasion to deliver a 
patriotic address, and often spoke at the out-of-door 
" war meetings," to the injury of his voice. He became 
the editor of The Independent, to which he had long been 
a regular contributor. Mrs. Stowe says : " He wished 
this chance to speak from time to time his views and opin- 
ions to the whole country. He was in constant com- 
munication with the Secretary of War, in whose patriot- 
ism, sagacity, and wonderful efficiency he had the greatest 
reliance." The severe strain of his exertions in and out 
of his pulpit, and " the burden of the war upon his 
spirit," impaired his health, robust and vigorous as he 
had been since his Atlantic trip in 1850, and the loss of 
his voice was threatened unless he permitted himself 
recreation. He was urged by his congregation to take a 
summer trip to Europe, and was absent from June, 1863, 
till the ensuing October. 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 1 79 

It is not too much to say that when Mr. Beecher re- 
turned from England he could have claimed any reward 
in the gift of the Government. But he had his reward in 
the gratitude of the nation and the affectionate demon- 
strations of his fellow-citizens. He simply resumed his 
work in its several lines, and continued the successes of 
his life. 

The fourth anniversary of the surrender of Fort Sum- 
ter, Charleston Harbor, by Major Robert Anderson, was 
commemorated April 12, 1865, by raising the identical 
flag that had been hauled down on that occasion. There 
was a large gathering on the ramparts of the battered old 
fort, many of the old-time Abolitionists being present, in- 
cluding, of course, many members of Plymouth Church. 
Mr. Beecher was invited to deliver the address. He 
made one of his most stirring addresses of congratulation 
on the proper and successful termination of the war, clos- 
ing with an eloquent appeal for the establishment of a re- 
stored union between the North and the South, which 
since the abolition of slavery by Lincoln's proclamation 
could not fail to come together again as brothers and per- 
petuate a great and prosperous country. For the im- 
poverished South he had only kind words. 

Returning home, when the steamer touched at Fort- 
ress Monroe the party, none more than Mr. Beecher, were 
horrified and shocked to be told of the assassination of 
President Lincoln. On the following Sabbath, April 23, 



ISO LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

1865, Plymouth Church was crowded as it had never 
been crowded before, and Mr. Beecher preached an elo- 
quent sermon on the sad event. 

He took as his text the first five verses of the last 
chapter of Deuteronomy, and commenced his discourse 
by drawing a parallel between the history of Moses, 
after leading his people many weary years through the 
wilderness, obtaining only a vision and not a realization 
of the promised land and dying, and that of President 
Lincoln passing through toil, sorrow, and war, to come 
near to the promised land of peace, into which he might 
not pass over. The speaker went on to say that two such 
orbs of joy and sorrow never before came together as we 
had witnessed in one week. " The joy of the nation 
came upon us suddenly, with such a surge as no words 
could describe. Men laughed, embraced one another, sung 
and prayed, and many could only weep gladness. In one 
hour joy had no pulse. The sorrow was so terrible that 
it stunned sensibility. The first feeling was the least, 
and men wanted to get strength to feel. Other griefs 
belong always to some one in chief, but this belonged to 
all. Men walked for days as though a corpse lay in their 
houses. The city forgot to roar. Never did so many 
hearts in so brief a time touch two such boundless feel- 
ings. It was the uttermost of joy and the uttermost of 
sorrow — noon and midnight without a space between. 
We should not mourn, however, because the departure 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. l8l 

of the President was so sudden. When one is prepared 
to die, the suddenness of death is a blessing. They that 
are taken awake and watching, as the bridegroom dressed 
for the wedding, and not those that die in pain and 
stupor, are blessed. Neither should we mourn the man- 
ner of his death. The soldier prays that he may die by 
the shot of the enemy in the hour of victory, and it was 
meet that he should be joined in a common experience in 
death with the brave men to whom he had been joined 
in all his sympathy and life. 

" This blow was but the expiring rebellion. Epito- 
mized in this foul act we find the whole nature and dis- 
position of slavery. It is fit that its expiring blow should 
be such as to take away from men the last forbearance, the 
last pity, and fire the soul with invincible determination 
that the breeding system of such mischiefs and monsters 
shall be forever and utterly destroyed. We needed not 
that he should put on paper that he believed in slavery, 
'vho with treason, with murder, with cruelty infernal, hov- 
ered around that majestic man to destroy his life. He was 
himself the long-life sting with which Slavery struck at 
Liberty, and he carried the poison that belonged to slav- 
ery ; and as long as this nation lasts it will never be for- 
gotten that we have had one martyr-President — never, 
never while time lasts, while heaven lasts, while hell 
rocks and groans, will it be forgotten that slavery by its 
minions slew him, and in slaying him made manifest its 



1 82 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

whole nature and tendency. This blow was aimed at the 
life of the Government. Some murders there have been 
that admitted shades of palliation, but not such a one 
as this — without provocation, without reason, without 
temptation, sprung from the fury of a heart cankered to 
all that is pure and just by slavery. 

" The blow has failed of its object. The Government 
stands more solid to-day than any pyramid of Egypt. 
Men love liberty and hate slavery to-day more than 
ever before. How naturally, how easily, the Govern- 
ment passed into the hands of the new President, and 
I avow my belief, that he will be found a man true to 
every instinct of liberty, true to the whole trust that 
is imposed in him, vigilant of the Constitution, careful 
of the laws, wise for liberty, in that he himself, for his 
life long, has known what it is to suffer from the stings of 
slavery, and to prize liberty from the bitter experiences 
of his own life. Even he that sleeps has by this event 
been clothed with new influence. His simple and weighty 
words will be gathered like those of Washington, and 
quoted by those who, were he alive, would refuse to 
listen. Men will receive a new access to patriotism. I 
swear you on the altar of his memory to be more faithful 
to that country for which he has perished. They will, as 
they follow his hearse, swear a new hatred to that slavery 
against which he warred, and which in vanquishing him 
has made him a martyr and conqueror. I swear you by 



IN THE WAR FOR THE UNION. 183 

the memory of this martyr to hate slavery with an un- 
abatable hatred, and to pursue it. They will admire the 
firmness of this man in justice, his inflexible conscience for 
the right, his gentleness and moderation of spirit, which 
not all the hate of party could turn to bitterness. And 
I swear you to his justice, and to his moderation, and to 
his mercy. How can I speak to that twilight million 
to whom his name was as the name of an angel of God, 
and whom God sent before them to lead them out of the 
house of bondage. O, thou Shepherd of Israel, thou that 
didst comfort Thy people of old, to Thy care we commit 
these helpless and long wronged and grieved. 

" And now the martyr is moving in triumphal march 
mightier than one alive. The nation rises up at every 
stage of his coming ; cities and States are his pall-bearers, 
and the cannon beats the hours in solemn progression ; 
dead, dead, dead, he yet speaketh. Is Washington dead ? 
Is Hampden dead ? Is David ? Disenthralled from the 
flesh and risen to the unobstructed sphere where passion 
never comes, he begins his illimitable work. His life 
now is grafted upon the infinite, and will be fruitful as 
no earthly life can be. Pass on. Four years ago, O 
Illinois, we took from your midst an untried man from 
among the people. Behold, we return him to you a 
mighty conqueror, not thine any more, but the nation's — 
not ours, but the world's. Give him place, O ye prai- 
ries ! in the midst of this great continent his dust shall 
8* 



1 84 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

rest a sacred treasure to myriads who shall pilgrim to 
that shrine to kindle anew their zeal and patriotism. Ye 
winds that move over the mighty spaces of the West, 
chant his requiem ! Ye people, behold the martyr whose 
blood, as so many articulate words, pleads for fidelity, for 
law, for liberty ! " 



CHAPTER VIII. 

HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 

His Greatest Oratorical Effort. — Going Abroad for a Vacation. — Three 
Months on the Continent. — Reluctantly consents to speak in Eng- 
land. — British Sympathy with the South. — Speech at Manchester. — 
Facing a British Mob. — Unsuccessful Attempts to silence Him. — 
How He Triumphed. — Speaking Plain Truths. — Shaking Hands with 
an Umbrella. — Speech at Glasgow. — Opposition of the Blockade- 
Runners. — His Address at Liverpool. — Inflammatory Placards on the 
Streets. — Scenes of Great Disorder. — Making Himself Heard. — Ar- 
rival in London. — Famous in Clubs and Social Circles. — Prostrated 
with Exhaustion. — Speech in Exeter Hall. — A Friendly Audience. — 
Immense Enthusiasm. — An Historical Narrative. — Change of Public 
Opinion. — Effect of Mr. Beecher's Speeches. 

In the spring of 1863 Mr. Beecher was beginning to 
feel the effect of the arduous duties he had imposed on 
himself, and fearing that he might break down under the 
severe strain on both his mental and physical powers, he 
made up his mind to tear himself away from the scenes 
of so much excitement and try the effect of a sea voyage 
and a short sojourn in Europe as a means of recuperation. 
Many people supposed at the time, and many still con- 
tinue to labor under the same false impression, that Mr. 
Beecher went over to England at the instance of the 



1 86 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

United States Government. This is an erroneous idea. 
The trip at the outset had no significance beyond the 
immediate benefit he anticipated deriving from the 
change of air and scene, and possessed no interest out- 
side the circle of his personal friends and the members of 
nis congregation, who were the pressing instigators of 
their pastor leaving his flock, and who cheerfully bore 
the expenses he had to incur. 

Mr. Beecher was never a good sailor, and most of the 
time of a long and tedious voyage was passed by him on 
his back in his cabin. 

When he landed in England he was met by many re- 
quests to lecture, but to all he turned a deaf ear, having 
made up his mind that he would neither preach nor lect- 
ure during his stay in the country. At this time the feel- 
ing of the upper and middle classes in England was in 
favor of the South. These classes constituted the voting 
and ruling power of the land. The lower or unvoting 
class was strongly disposed toward the North. Mr. 
Beecher did not feel particularly friendly toward England 
for the attitude she had assumed on the war question, and 
after leaving Liverpool, where he had landed, he had only 
paid short visits to Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester, and 
London before he left for a three months' tour on the Con- 
tinent. He had steadily refused to open his mouth in 
public on British soil, but at a Temperance breakfast given 
to him in Scotland he had made a speech on the under- 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 1 8/ 

standing that nothing was to be reported. In London, 
likewise, he had been induced to break through his re- 
solve. The Congregational clergymen of that city had 
invited him to meet them at breakfast, and he took the 
opportunity afforded by expressing strongly his indigna- 
tion that they as a body of clergymen should have thrown 
their sympathy on the side of slavery. 

The Anti-Slavery Union after this endeavored to per- 
suade him to make some speeches, but their efforts were 
unavailing. 

On the Continent he wandered through France, Ger- 
many, Switzerland, and Italy, and finally returned to Paris. 
It was here that the news came to him of Grant's great 
victory at Vicksburg, and also the triumph at Gettysburg. 
At the same hotel where he was stopping in Paris there 
were a number of Southerners who had made a point of 
indirectly insulting him in various ways, but after the ar- 
rival of the news of these two great victories he saw them 
no more. They had crowed in the hour of triumph, but 
could not hold up their heads in adversity. 

On his return to England he was again met by the same 
pressing importunities to make some addresses. For a 
time he continued to decline, but he veered round with a 
strong determination to fight when he learned that a move- 
ment was on foot to turn the lower classes from their ad- 
herence to the cause of liberty. He finally consented to 
speak at Manchester, and soon afterward it was arranged 



1 88 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

that he should speak at Liverpool, Glasgow, Edinburgh, 
and London. 

When he proceeded to Manchester to make what might 
really be called his first public speech in behalf of his 
cause, he expected to find very hostile demonstrations 
against him. Influential opinion throughout the country 
was strongly in favor of the South, and based on very 
flimsy and unreliable information as regarded facts, so 
that he met but very few who understood the conflict, 
and who took the side of the North. The few people of 
this mind that he had met, when they related their ex- 
periences in the endeavors they had made to change the 
popular sentiment of England, might have intimidated a 
weaker man. But fear had no part in Henry Ward 
Beecher's creed. He had been first surprised at the ig- 
norance generally displayed on the subject of the Civil 
War, then indignant at the manner in which the subject 
was treated, and had been somewhat inclined to treat with 
silent contempt a nation who could howl down any at- 
tempt to expound truth unto them. From this mood, 
however, he had been roused, and now that he had deter- 
mined to speak, any sign of opposition only made his de- 
termination stronger, and he was fully resolved not only 
to speak, but to be heard. 

But, prepared as he was for hostile demonstrations, he 
could hardly have believed the excitement would have 
been so great. Blood-red placards were all over the 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 1 89 

place denouncing Mr. Beecher and his principles, and his 
friends were down-hearted at the gloomy outlook. Se- 
renely and calmly he told them he was going to be heard 
all the same, and infused into them a little of the power- 
ful fighting incentive he had in himself to overcome diffi- 
culties. 

The Manchester address was delivered at the Free 
Trade Hall. The excitement had been naturally great, 
but it had been fostered and played with and intensified, 
and now it was at its highest pitch. As soon as Mr. 
Beecher appeared the scene baffled description ; the 
cheering, hissing, stamping, clapping, shouting, and groan- 
ing shook the hall almost to its foundations. He rose, 
a carefully prepared manuscript in his hand, and had got 
as far as " Mr. Chairman," when the cries of approval and 
disapproval burst forth anew. Ever quick at noting the 
temper of his audience, he quickly responded \o the 
groans and hisses of his opponents by tossing his manu- 
script aside, and then set himself down to a regular fight. 

For two hours was he on his feet, making, not a speech 
— that would be too mild a term — but a triumphant prog- 
ress, interrupted by difficulties and obstacles, surmounted 
as fast as presented, dealing with facts, statistics, and 
arguments, without once having to refer to a note or 
being at a loss for a word. At the outset he had noticed 
that his earnest sympathizers and opponents were 
about evenly matched in point of numbers ; he decided, 



190 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

therefore, not to address, himself directly to either of 
these, but to endeavor to impart instruction and bring 
conviction to the large number who did not possess 
strong feelings either way. He discussed the value of 
freedom and the evils of slavery, and exhorted the man- 
ufacturing community in their own interest to stand by 
the cause of liberty. 

If his opponents had been able to accomplish what 
they endeavored to do that day — to break him down on 
his first speech — it would have been a great triumph for 
them ; but they did not know the man. With quick re- 
tort and ready repartee, he gazed on his audience calmly 
and determinedly, replying to questions hurled at him, 
smiling and laughing outright at ludicrous interruptions, 
patiently waiting the subsidence of tumult, but all the 
same, as opportunity offered, quietly and distinctly pro- 
gressing in his subject until the end came and the vote 
that was called off proved to each man in the audience 
and to the world at large the power of the advocate and 
the greatness of his cause. 

It was a great triumph, more especially when it is con- 
sidered that this was Mr. Beecher's first experience with 
an English mixed audience. He had dreaded it, and for 
a short time had felt a horrible feeling of timidity come 
over him, fearing that he might fail ; but he had cast it 
off, leaving the matter, as he himself said, " in the hands 
of God," and from that moment he had known no recur- 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 191 

rence of the feeling. As he was leaving the hall he was 
congratulated on all sides. One big burly Englishman 
some distance away wanted to shake hands with him, but 
could not get near him on account of the crowd. Reach- 
ing over the heads of the people, he held out his um- 
brella and called out, " Shake my umbrella ! " Mr. 
Beecher did so, and the man shouted, " By Jock ! no- 
body shall touch that umbrella again ! " 

After the Manchester address came the speech at Glas- 
gow. Here he found his audience at the City Hall, in 
almost as great a state of tumult as that at Manchester, 
but he was now confident of his power, and had no fear 
of the result. A great favorite on the Glasgow plat- 
form, the Rev. Dr. William Anderson, had been ap- 
pointed to introduce Mr. Beecher, but he could not 
make himself heard. Mr. Beecher walked to the front 
and quietly descanted on the beauty of the Scottish scen- 
ery, the bravery and heroism of Scotland's warriors, the 
renown of its bards and poets, with so much eloquence 
that the enthusiasm of his audience was enkindled, and he 
was greeted with a spontaneous burst of applause. He 
then endeavored to bring in the all-burning question, but 
the marks of disapprobation were of so expressive a nat- 
ure that he said " he would sit down and rest until they 
got the hissing over." 

After a while he got a hearing and repeated his pro- 
gressive triumph at Manchester. The audience was as- 



192 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

tonished at his quickness of retort and his fluency of 
speech, and they admired his pluck and good temper. 
Anecdote followed anecdote in quick succession in his 
endeavor to keep his audience in good humor, but calmly 
and firmly he insisted on informing them that the South 
would be brought back to their allegiance, and that the 
war should not cease so long as there was a slave in 
America on whom the sun of heaven could shine. To 
one man who cried, " We don't sympathize with slavery, 
but we go for the South because they are the weaker 
party," he replied, " Go, then, and sympathize with the 
devil — he was the weaker party also when he rebelled 
and was turned out of heaven. Yours is a good enough 
argument for school-boys ten years of age. Hold a 
string between them and see who is the strongest ; but 
when the principles of liberty and slavery are the ques- 
tions, it is a shame for a man of your age to talk that 
way." His questioners were at length silenced, and dur- 
ing the latter part of his address he had it all his own 
way, and he demonstrated the unity of labor the world 
over, and discussed the relations of the laboring man to 
government, and to the aristocratic classes, and how 
slavery made labor disreputable. He also insisted that 
it was a disgrace to them to be building ships to put 
down the laborers of America, and to cast shame and 
contempt on themselves and on every man on earth that 
earned his living by the sweat of his brow. 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 1 93 

Mr. Beecher had more than made his mark in two im- 
portant cities, and the British people were now beginning 
to see the case more clearly ; the press, which had been 
generally vilifying and attacking him and his cause in 
slashing editorials, began now to modify and soften their 
remarks ; and a particularly significant act of the govern- 
ment stopped the blockade-runners that had been build- 
ing on the Mersey. There can be no doubt now that 
Mr. Beecher's presence in England two years earlier 
would have prevented, to a large extent, British sympa- 
thy for the South. 

In Edinburgh he found a more educated audience, and 
discussed the effect of the presence of slavery on litera- 
ture and learning. The audience was a very large one, 
but there was less commotion than he had experienced 
at either Manchester or Glasgow. 

Glasgow and Liverpool were the last possible places 
Mr. Beecher could have looked to for sympathy in his 
cause, from the fact of the Clyde and the Mersey fur- 
nishing blockade-runners, and also other mercantile inter- 
ests that were involved. Consequently, in going to 
Liverpool he did not anticipate smooth sailing. Man- 
chester had been bad enough, but it was as peace to war 
in comparison to the popular feeling that now awaited 
him. The most scurrilous and abusive cards were plac- 
arded on the streets and in every available space, calling 
on the people to give the man that was coming " the 



194 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

welcome he deserved." Some idea of this ink attack 
may be gathered from the following specimen of a poster, 
the original size being 25x38 inches : 

WHO IS HENRY WARD BEECHER? 

He is the man who said the best blood of England 
must be shed to atone for the Trent affair. 

He is the man who advocates a war of extermination 
with the South — says it is incapable of " regeneration," 
but proposes to re-people it from the North by " genera- 
tion." — See Times. 

He is the friend of that inhuman monster, General 
Butler. He is the friend of that so-called Gospel 
Preacher, Cheever, who said in one of his sermons : 
" Fight against the South till Hell freezes, and then con- 
tinue the battle on the ice." 

He is the friend and supporter of a most debased Fe- 
male, who uttered at a public meeting in America the 
most indecent and cruel language that ever polluted fe- 
male lips. — See Times. 

Men of Liverpool — Englishmen ! 

What reception can you give this wretch save unmiti- 
gated disgust and contempt ? His impudence in coming 
here is only equalled by his cruelty and impiety. Should 
he, however, venture to appear, it behooves all right- 



o S 




HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1863. 197 

minded men to render as futile as the first this second 
attempt to get up a public demonstration in favor of the 
North, which is now waging war against the South with 
a vindictive and revengeful cruelty unparalleled in the 
history of any Christian land. 

These placards and the agitation against the North 
that had been 'carefully fostered had the effect that had 
been desired. The highest state of excitement prevailed ; 
but this had no deterrent effect on the man against whom 
they were aimed. So great was the excitement that it 
is said that a number of men attended the meeting with 
weapons, which they were only deterred from using by 
an equal show of weapons on the part of certain of Mr. 
Beecher's supporters. For a time all was confusion and 
turmoil, and it was over an hour and a half before he 
could obtain control of the audience. After that he had 
it all his own way ; but he had been compelled to stretch 
his voice to its utmost strength, and it was some time 
before he recovered the perfect use of it. Into this meet- 
ing he threw all his force, and one gentleman who was 
present said he had never heard anything like it since 
the days of Daniel O'Connell, and that he thought not 
one of O'Connell's best things equalled Mr. Beecher's 
effort on that occasion. 

When Mr. Beecher returned to London he found him- 
self famous. He had been attacked and fully reported 



I98 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in the papers, and had been the talk of the clubs. He 
had become the fashion. He used to tell an amusing 
story of his hotel experiences in London. He put up at 
the " Golden Cross " hotel when he first went there, and 
they gave him a little back room at the top of the house. 
On his return from the Continent he was received with 
a little more politeness, and was favored with a front 
room on the third story. On the third visit after his tri- 
umphant conquests in Manchester, Glasgow, and Liver- 
pool he was received with all deference by the landlord 
and his assistants, and was given the best suite of rooms 
in the house. Here trouble awaited him. He had had 
a most successful career in spite of tremendous difficul- 
ties, but the strain on his voice had been too great, and 
on his arrival he had to take to his bed. He had yet his 
most important work to perform — to address the meeting 
at Exeter Hall — and his voice had failed him. He com- 
mitted himself in this difficulty to the hands of God, on 
whom he had so often depended. He said, " Lord, thou 
knowest this. Let it be as thou wilt." 

Next morning when he awoke he was almost afraid to 
speak. He felt well and strong, but his voice, though 
improved, was still husky. However, he gathered him- 
self together for a last mighty effort, and before the day 
was over all London had felt the presence of the mighty 
man that was in their midst. Exeter Hall was packed 
inside and outside, and even the adjoining streets were 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 1 99 

thronged with a surging mass of humanity endeavoring, 
even if they could not enter the hall, to approach as close 
to the building as they possibly could. In order to get 
into the hall himself Mr. Beecher had to accept the aid 
of the police. 

When he rose to speak he was greeted with the most 
vociferous cheering. He began by asking forbearance on 
account of his hoarseness. " I expect to be hoarse," he 
said, " and I am willing to be hoarse, if I can in any way 
assist to bring the mother and daughter heart to heart 
and hand to hand together." This was the signal for a 
renewed outburst of cheering. He then proceeded to 
review in brief his course in Great Britain. He said that 
at Manchester he had attempted to give a history of the 
external political movement for fifty years before, so far 
as it was necessary to illustrate the fact that the Ameri- 
can Civil War was only an overt and warlike form of a 
contest between liberty and slavery that had been going 
on politically for half a century. At Glasgow he had 
undertaken to show the condition of work or labor ne- 
cessitated by any profitable system of slavery, demon- 
strating that it brought labor into contempt, affixing to 
it the badge of degradation, and that a struggle to extend 
servile labor across the American continent interested 
every free working-man on the globe. 

His sincere belief was that the Southern cause was the 
natural enemy of free labor and the laborer all the world 



200 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

over. In Edinburgh he had endeavored to sketch how, 
out of separate colonies and States intensely jealous of 
their individual sovereignty there had grown up and had 
been finally established a nation, and how in the nation 
of the United States two distinct and antagonistic systems 
had been developed, and struggled for the guidance of 
the national policy, which struggle had at length passed 
and the North gained the control. Thereupon the South 
had abandoned the Union simply and solely because the 
Government was in future to be administered by men 
who would give their whole influence to freedom. In 
Liverpool he had labored under difficulties to show that 
slavery in the long-run was as hostile to commerce and 
to manufacturers all the world over as it was to free in- 
terests in human society ; that a slave nation must be a 
poor customer, buying the poorest and fewest goods, and 
the least profitable to the producers ; that it was the in- 
terest of every manufacturing country to promote free- 
dom, intelligence, and wealth among all nations ; that the 
attempt to cover the fairest portion of the earth with a 
slave population that bought next to nothing ought to 
array against it every true political economist and every 
thoughtful and far-seeing manufacturer, as tending to 
strike at the vital want of commerce — which was not 
cotton, but rich customers. 

He had endeavored to enlist against this flagitious 
wickedness and the great civil war which it had kindled 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 201 

the judgment, conscience, and interests of the British 
people, and he would do his best to leave no vestige of 
doubt that slavery had been the cause — the only cause — 
the whole cause — of the war. He had already tried to 
show that sympathy for the South, however covered by 
excuses or softened by sophistry, was simply sympathy 
with an audacious attempt to build up a slave empire 
pure and simple. He had tried to show that the North 
were contending for the preservation of their Govenv 
ment and their own territory, and those popular institu- 
tions on which the well-being of the nation depended. 

He had so far, he said, spoken to the English from an 
English point of view, but he was now going to ask them 
to look at the struggle from an American point of view, 
and in its moral aspects. There had been some disagree- 
ment of feeling between America and Great Britain. He 
did not want to argue the question which was right and 
which was wrong, but if some kind neighbor would per- 
suade two people that were at disagreement to consider 
each other's position and circumstances, it might not lead 
either to adopting the other's judgment, but it might lead 
them to say of each other, " I think he is honest and 
means well, even if he be mistaken." This was greeted 
with loud cheering. 

" You may not," he went on, " thus get a settlement of 
the difficulty, but you will get a settlement of the quarrel. 
I merely ask you to put yourselves in our track for one 
9 



202 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

hour, and look at the objects as we look at them— after 
that, form your judgment as you please." 

His audience had been kindly disposed from the first, 
and his opening words, clearly and distinctly enunciated, 
notwithstanding his hoarseness, threw everyone into the 
proper frame of mind to give him a fair and dispassionate 
hearing. He then went on to narrate the history of the 
conflict from its earliest stages. He said the first issue 
between the North and South was on purely moral 
grounds. It was a conflict simply of opinion and of 
truths by argument, and by appeal to the moral sense it 
was sought to persuade the slaveholder to adopt some 
plan of emancipation. The South seemed to apologize 
for slavery rather than defend it against argument. It 
was said : "The evil is upon us ; we cannot help it. We 
are sullied, but it is a misfortune rather than a fault. It 
is not right for the North to meddle with that which is 
made worse by being meddled with, even by argument or 
appeal." That was the earlier portion of the conflict. 

The next stage was purely political. The South was 
attempting to extend their slave system into the terri- 
tories, and to prevent free States from covering the conti- 
nent by bringing into the Union a slave State for every 
free State. It was also the design and endeavor of the 
South not simply to hold and employ the enormous power 
and influence of the Central Executive^ but also to ingraft 
into the whole Federal Government a slave State policy. 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 203 

They meant to fill all offices at home and abroad with men 
loyal to slavery — to shut up the road to political prefer- 
ment against men who had aspirations for freedom, and 
to corrupt the young and ambitious by obliging them to 
swear fealty to slavery as the condition of success. 

The South had pursued a uniform system of bribing 
and corrupting ambitious men of Northern consciences. 
A far more dangerous part of its policy was to change the 
Constitution, not overtly, not by external aggression — 
worse, to fill the courts with Southern judges until, first 
by laws of Congress passed through Southern influence, 
secondly by the construction and adjudication of the 
courts, the Constitution having become more and more 
tied up to Southern principles, the North would have to 
submit to slavery, or else to oppose it by violating the 
law and Constitution as construed by servile judges. 
They were, in short, little by little, injecting the laws, 
Constitution, and policy of the country with the poison 
and blood of slavery. Until the Civil War the North, 
although it had rid itself of slavery, was unable to touch 
slavery directly. 

The North could only contend against slave policy — 
not directly against slavery, and for this reason : slavery 
was not the creature of national law, and therefore not 
subject to national jurisprudence, but of State law, and 
subject only to State jurisdiction. A direct act on the 
part of the North to abolish slavery would have been 



204 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

revolutionary. It would have been a violation of the 
fundamental principle of State independence. Each 
State, in respect to those rights and institutions that were 
local and peculiar to it, had undivided sovereignty over 
its own affairs ; but all powers, such as taxes, wars, 
treaties of peace, which belonged to one State and were 
common to all States, went into the General Government. 
The General Government never had the power — the 
power was never delegated to it — to meddle with the in- 
terior and domestic economy of the States, and it never 
could be done. 

It was only that part of slavery which escaped from the 
State jurisdiction, and which entered into the national 
sphere, which formed the subject of controversy. The 
Constitution of the States could not justly be touched, 
but only the policy of the National Government that 
came out beyond the State and appeared in Congress and 
in the territories. The great conflict between the South 
and the North until the war began was, which should con- 
trol the Federal or Central Government and the territories. 
It was not " Emancipation " or " No Emancipation ; " 
Government had no business with that question. Before 
the war, the only thing on which politically the free 
people of the North and South took their respective sides 
was, " Shall the National policy be free or slave ? " Dur- 
ing a period of eighty years the North had held to her 
word, and with scrupulous honor had respected legal 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 205 

rights, even when they were merely civil and not moral 
rights. 

The fidelity of the North to the great doctrine of 
State rights, which was born of her — her forbearance un- 
der wrong, insult, and provocation — her conscientious 
and honorable refusal to meddle with the evil which she 
hated, and which she saw to be aiming at the life of 
Government, and at her own life — her determination to 
hold fast pact and Constitution, and to gain her victories 
by giving the people a new National policy — will yet be 
deemed worthy of something better than a contemptuous 
sneer or the allegation of an " enormous national vanity." 

How, then, did the North pass from a conflict with the 
South and a slave policy to a direct attack upon the in- 
stitutions of slavery ? Because they beleaguered the 
National Government and the national life with the in- 
stitution of slavery — obliged a sworn President who was 
put under oath not to invade that institution to take 
his choice between the safety and life of the Government 
itself and the slavery by which it was beleaguered. As 
the fundamental right of individual self-defence could 
not be withdrawn without immorality, so the first ele- 
ment of national life was to defend life, and when a na- 
tion was assaulted it was a right and duty, in the exer- 
cise of self-defence, to destroy the enemy by which 
otherwise it would be destroyed. When the South 
threw down the gauntlet of war and said that by it slav- 



206 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ery was to be adjudicated, the North could do nothing 
else than take up the challenge. 

In this manner did Mr. Beecher continue, carefully ex- 
plaining and throwing light as he went along, making 
point after point in his favor with telling effect, to which 
the continued cheering which greeted almost his every 
sentence bore unmistakable evidence. He had oppor- 
tunity in the course of his speech to retaliate on the 
press, particularly the Times and the Daily Telegraph, 
for some of the attacks they had made on him after his 
Manchester and Glasgow speeches, and when he said he 
would have a different story to tell when he got back to 
America of the feeling of England to that which his 
countrymen had been able to gather from the English 
newspapers, the assembly rose en masse and hats and 
handkerchiefs were waved enthusiastically amid loud 
cheering. After speaking for over two hours, he- had to 
ask his audience to permit him to stop, pleading exhaust- 
ion. 

Professor Newman then rose and moved the following 
resolution : 

"Resolved, That this meeting presents its most cor- 
dial thanks to the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher for the 
admirable address which he has delivered this even- 
ing, and expresses its hearty sympathy with his rep- 
robation of the slaveholders' rebellion, his vindication 
of the rights of a free government, and his aspirations 



HIS VISIT TO ENGLAND IN 1 863. 20/ 

for peace and friendship between the English people and 
their American brethren ; and as this meeting recognized 
in Mr. Beecher one of the early pioneers of negro emanci- 
pation, as well as one of the most eloquent and success- 
ful of the champions of that great cause, it rejoices in this 
opportunity of congratulating him on the triumphs with 
which the labors of himself and his associates have been 
crowned in the anti-slavery policy of President Lincoln 
and his cabinet." 

Loud cheers greeted the reading of this motion, which 
was unanimously carried. 

That he won his oratorical battles in every place where 
he spoke, even his enemies declared. Every word he 
uttered was reported and printed. He displayed himself 
in all his best array. He made the people listen to his 
sober arguments, laugh at his wit, and weep when he 
mourned. The man who had hitherto been known as 
" Ward Beecher, a brother of Mrs. Beecher Stowe," now 
had his own firm foundation. Social attentions were 
showered on him, and he became the rage ; but the same 
seft-respect that had sustained him when he was literally 
ignored before now kept him from the abasement of 
recognizing aught that did not benefit the cause he 
served. 

The effect of Mr. Beecher's speeches was to entirely 
change the moral sentiment of Great Britain toward the 
North, and, both in themselves and in their results, it is 



208 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

doubtful whether any greater oratorical triumph has evei 
been recorded. Not long after his London address, 
about the middle of November, he took passage from 
Liverpool, and after a tedious passage of fifteen days 
arrived in his native land, where the news of his good 
work had long preceded him. 



CHAPTER IX. 

HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 

His Temperament leads to Political Affiliation. — One of the Early 
Abolitionists. —Clay. — Calhoun. — Henry B. Stanton. — The Pulpit 
and Slavery. — Seward. — Greeley. — Buchanan. — The Drift of Senti- 
ment Previous to the War. — His Views at the Time. — The Fremont 
Campaign. — The " Political Parson." — He advocates Lincoln. — Belief 
that His Election would Precipitate War. — Visit to England. — His 
Valuable Service as a Defender of the Union in England. — Lincoln's 
Re-election. — After the War. — Jefferson Davis. — President Johnson. 
—General Grant.— A Southern Tour. — " The North and South."— 
General Fitzhugh Lee. — He becomes a "Mugwump." — Supporting 
Cleveland. — Old Ties Sundered. — Civil Service Reform. — Beecher 
and Curtis interview the President. — Democratic Resolutions. 

Mr. Beecher's sympathetic temperament naturally 
made him a partisan, and led him into political discus- 
sion. His three anti-slavery sermons in the Second 
Presbyterian Church, in Indianapolis, Ind., at a time 
when the pulpit never referred to the questions of the 
day, caused him to be ranked among the leading Aboli- 
tionists. The subject was then unpopular excepting 
with affiliating coteries or organizations, and was re- 
garded as a political question rather than a humane proj- 
ect. Mr. Beecher took the bold ground that slavery was 
9* 



2IO LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in defiance of the laws of God, and consequently a 
proper theme for the pulpit. Speaking of this period of 
life, he gave to a friend an interesting review of the con- 
temporaneous public men as follows : 

" When I was in Cincinnati Charles Hammond was the 
editor of the Cincinnati Gazette, one of the ablest men in 
the West, and the Cincinnati Gazette was by all odds — 
head and shoulder — the leading Whig newspaper. Henry 
Clay used, before any important movement, to consult 
with Charles Hammond." 

" Did you ever meet Henry Clay and hear him 
speak ? " 

" Yes. I thought he was the dullest old fellow I ever 
heard. It was at a barbecue in Indianapolis. He was 
jaded and tired. He was not wound up, and had nobody 
to stick a pin in him." 

" Do you think he was an eloquent man ? " 

" Yes ; if you take in his personal magnetism and the 
adaptation of himself to the currents of thoughts and feel- 
ings that were existing. Henry Clay was not a man 
that out of his own day was or ever will be so great as 
he was in his own age." 

" He was not as great a man as Webster ? " 

" No, nor as Calhoun, but a man that made passionate 
friends, and a natural born leader of men." 

" Magnetic ? " 

" To the last degree, and he had all the intuitions and 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 21 J 

that union of affectionate blandishment and indignation 
and threat to him. He could strike or he could caress, 
and with either blows or caresses was very powerful." 

" You adhered to your anti-slavery sentiment in the 
West ? " 

" Yes, although I saw that to do so was exceedingly un- 
popular in Cincinnati — that it would alienate everybody 
that I knew there — and that, among other reasons, con- 
firmed me in my tendencies, because I have always had 
a kind of irresistible impulse to defend the weak, espe- 
cially when I saw they were trodden down by men of in- 
fluence and power ; to throw myself into the rescue of the 
wronged was as strong in me as life itself. So, when the 
mob rose in Cincinnati and destroyed Dr. Bailey's news- 
paper — Bailey was afterward editor of the New Era in 
Washington, in which Mrs. Stowe's ' Uncle Tom's Cabin ' 
appeared — when the mob rose and broke in and scattered 
his type, dragged his press down the main street and 
threw it into the Ohio River, and once again the riotous 
spirit foamed over and they threatened to shoot down 
the colored people in Cincinnati, and had got to that 
point that the mayor called for special policemen to pro- 
tect the city and the negro quarters, I was sworn in 
as a special policeman, and patrolled the streets for two 
nights armed to the teeth to defend the negroes. In the 
absence of its editor, who had gone to the General As- 
sembly in Philadelphia, I had taken the Cincinnati 



212 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Journal, the Presbyterian religious new school paper, and 
was editing it. In this paper I attacked this mob spirit, 
and with such a vehemence that Charles Hammond put 
the whole article into the Cincinnati Gazette. That was 
all along the same line of anti-slavery impulse. I then 
went to Lawrenceburg, twenty miles below Cincinnati. 
There was a Presbyterian Church there that would seat 
one hundred and fifty people. There were twenty mem- 
bers, one man and the rest women. With the exception 
of two, everyone was dependent for her livelihood on her 
industry." - 

" What was your salary there ? " 

" Four hundred dollars. Two hundred and fifty dol- 
lars was paid by the American Home Missionary Society, 
and the balance was raised by people in my church." 

" That was the custom for this society to aid all feeble 
churches in the West ? " 

" All feeble churches would receive a portion of their 
salary in that way. The society was organized for that 
purpose. I do not believe there were in my Synod ten 
ministers that were not more or less assisted by that so- 
ciety, and now all through the West it is the same thing 
to-day, away to the Pacific Ocean." 

" The knot of recognized Abolitionists in those days was 
so very small — Mr. Tappan, Mr. Garrison, and Mr. Wen- 
dell Phillips — that I suppose all of necessity were known 
to you ? " 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 21 3 

"They were East, and I went back into Indiana as 
a missionary, and was working among the common 
people." 

" And you were on the field where the fight had to 
come sooner or later ?" 

" I was, and it may interest you to know that among 
the lecturers was Henry B. Stanton, who had studied 
theology under my father. After staying for two years 
and a little over at Lawrenceburg I was called to Indian- 
apolis. This was at the time when the division took 
place. The Presbyterian Church split on the rock of 
slavery. Theology was the mere occasion and pretence, 
but the root of the matter was slavery. The South was 
largely new-school, but the new school of the North was 
leavened with the anti-slavery tendency to a very great 
extent, and the understanding was, as I heard my father 
state it, that the new-school ministers of the South said 
to the Princeton men : l We will sustain you as against 
the new school of the North if you will see to it that the 
Presbyterian Church at large does not meddle with the 
question of slavery in the South.' It was a league : it was 
an understood thing. It was carried out. The Southern 
Presbyterians, all for the sake of slavery, consented to up- 
hold the hands of the old-school Princeton, and the new 
school of the North was split off from them and organized 
by themselves, and they were, especially in the West, very 
generally anti-slavery. I don't know one man in the 



214 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Synod of Indiana who was not an open and avowed anti- 
slavery man." 

" This was about when ? " 

"About 1840-41. I went to Indianapolis, preaching 
in the upper hall or room of a little brick academy, which 
would not hold much over a hundred people, while the 
church was building. It is now owned by Governor Eng- 
lish." 

"Well, what then?" 

" After a year we were directed by the Synod to preach 
once a year on the duties- of the Church to the en- 
slaved." 

"Did you do it?" 

" Yes. I waited until the United States Federal 
Court came there, with Judge McLean as the presiding 
judge ; and when all of our State Courts, Supreme Court, 
and Circuit, were in session and the Legislature was con- 
vened — so that all lawyers and public officers, men of 
every kind, thronged the city — to announce that I should 
preach on slavery. In the morning I discussed the nature 
of Hebrew slavery and the way in which it ceased. In 
the afternoon I preached on American slavery and the 
duty of the American church on that subject. Well, 
you may depend it was a bomb thrown, and they went 
streaming back to the hotel, and when they sat down to 
dinner someone said : ' Judge McLean, what do you think 
of that ?' ' Well,' said he, ' I think if every minister in 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 215 

the United States would be as faithful it would be a 
great advance in settling this question.' Well, that set- 
tled it. It gave the cue, and the lawyers, they, on the 
whole, sympathized too, and the members of the Legis- 
lature, and the consequence was that I had preached two 
flaming sermons with no reaction by a judicious adapta- 
tion to time and circumstance. I suppose that was the 
first anti-slavery sermon that was ever preached in the 
capital of the State of Indiana." 

" To that circumstance you probably owe the reputa- 
tion which preceded you to New York ? " 

" Yes." 

Mr. Beecher continued his anti-slavery crusade in 
Plymouth Church more vigorously than ever, but did 
not take any prominent part in politics until the Fre- 
mont presidential campaign in 1856, when he boldly 
espoused the cause of the Pathfinder. Says an account : 

" Finally, after years of agitation, from the labors of 
the little coterie was born the Republican Party. Mr. 
Beecher was one of its few fathers, and tended it carefully 
from its birth. When John C. Fremont was nominated 
as presidential candidate he took great interest in the 
campaign and addressed great audiences in Massachu- 
setts, New York, and Pennsylvania. He was then forty- 
three years old, and in perfect health. With the excep- 
tion of several months in 1849, when he was so seriously 
ill as to prevent his preaching from March until Septem- 



216 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ber, and three months in 1850, when he made a convales- 
cing trip to Europe, he had not been absent a Sunday 
from his pulpit. The national peril in 1856 seemed so 
great that he was induced by his political friends to 
accept a leave of absence from his church and travel 
through the Middle and Western States on a kind of 
oratorical pilgrimage. Wherever he went his fame pre- 
ceded him, and in that memorable fight he added laurels 
of imperishable renown to those already won. 

" The defeat of Fremont, by Mr. Beecher and many 
others, believed to be the work of Pennsylvania tricksters, 
consolidated the Republican Party, intensified the grow- 
ing hatred of the sections, and afforded the extremists 
on both sides of Mason and Dixon's line a never-ending 
theme of discussion. Plymouth pulpit had become a 
national institution. The streets of Brooklyn leading 
from the ferries were busy with processions of men from 
New York looking for ' Beecher.' The policemen never 
waited for a stranger to conclude his question, but invari- 
ably interrupted him and said : ' Follow the crowd.' 
That hundreds heard Mr. Beecher preach from Sunday 
to Sunday who hated him and his doctrines is undoubt- 
edly the fact. Some of the ' best people ' in the city 
refused to speak to him, and all over the land he was 
vilified and abused. All this made no impression on him. 
Some of his people left his ministry, but where one went 
twenty new ones came. He demanded a free platform 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 21 7 

for himself, and accorded it to others. His people did 
not servilely believe anything because he said it, for they 
often maintained opinions different from his to the end." 

Indulging in political reminiscences one day with a 
friend, Mr. Beecher, in answer to a question as to whom he 
regarded as the most influential leaders of public senti- 
ment, leading the Abolitionists on the one hand and the 
better grade of Whigs on the other, the point of focus as 
Republicans, said : 

" Well, I think Seward on the whole. Greeley was 
off and on. Horace Greeley was one of the ablest ad- 
vocates in public affairs. When wise counsel had laid 
down a good, line, a good platform, and Mr. Greeley 
mounted it in defence, there was no man so able as he, 
but when the work was not the defence of an agreed-upon 
platform, but the formation of it, he was a very unwise 
and uncertain counsellor. I do not know whether it is 
worth my while to tell the history of one thing that oc- 
curred about the time of the war. There was an assem- 
bly in an hotel in New York. There were fifty Southern 
officers in our army convened in an hotel in New York 
after secession was in full swing, to discuss what their 
duties as officers should be, and the point was this : If 
the South is to be organized into another government 
it is perfectly honorable for us to change our allegiance 
from the Government of the North to the Government 
of the South, but if that is not to be accepted or toler- 



2l8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ated, then we are bound by our oath of allegiance to this 
Government, which has educated us, not to go over to 
the Southern army. On this morning appeared in the 
Tribune that wonderful declaration, ' Let the South go,' 
by Greeley ! These gentlemen said : ' All the South are 
agreed that there is to be this new government. The 
Democratic party of the North, we know, assents to it, 
and the only question remaining is, What are the anti- 
slavery men going to do ? ' And on that morning came 
out that declaration of Greeley, who was regarded wrong- 
fully as being the leader of the great anti-slavery move- 
ment, and they said, ' That settles it,' and in less than 
twenty-four hours every mother's son of them but one 
had left the North and gone pell-mell down South and 
offered his sword to the Confederates, because the 
Southern management would give these officers their 
rank in the order of their application, and it was impor- 
tant that they should get in first and not get near the tail. 
The last support, therefore, was kicked from under the 
vessel by a careless foot." 

" Do you share the belief that was quite general at the 
time that Fremont carried Pennsylvania ? " 

" I do." 

" Do you believe that he was elected President ?" 

" I do." 

*' Do you believe that his inauguration as President 
would have averted a civil war ? " 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 2IO, 

« No." 

" Did you know President Buchanan ? " 

" No, nothing more than just by sight." 

" Do you believe him to have been a square man ?" 

li I believe him to have been a man of honest inten- 
tions, but utterly unfit for the times which found him. 
He had neither courage nor any commanding discre- 
tion." 

" How do you regard Douglas ? " 

" I regard Douglas as a very able man indeed, but a 
dangerous man, because I do not think that he acted on 
great lines, but rather on the inner lines of political ex- 
pediency." 

" Do you think he was a thoroughly loyal man ? " 

" I think he was a thoroughly loyal man." 

" Do you think the election of President Lincoln pre- 
cipitated the rebellion ? " 

" Yes." 

" Do you think that his death and its manner, and at 
the time, was a great thing for him in history ?" 

" Yes, sir ; I think that his coffin was more than the 
Presidential chair. It certainly gave to the whole of his 
career the influence of a kind of political saintship." 

" Do you believe that he would have carried out a 
different policy from that of Johnson ? " 

" I know that at the time that things were drawing to 
a consummation he had in an inchoate form the very 



220 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

policy that Johnson undertook to carry out under a 
change of circumstances. I know it, because the Cleve- 
land letter that I wrote was the result of conferences 
with Governor Andrew and President Lincoln, just pre- 
ceding Lincoln's death, as to what were to be the next 
coming steps after the breaking down of the rebellion, 
and at that time, under the circumstances, it seems to me 
that they had, on the whole, very wise views. It may 
be said almost in a sentence what their policy was. It 
was to say to the leading public men of the South : 
1 Gentlemen, you took your section out of the Union ; 
you must bring it back. We hold you responsible. 
We will give you all the power necessary to do it. 
Slavery is gone, and as you went out with those men 
who have been defeated, now you must come back and 
we will trust you.' " 

" Whom did you regard as the significant men in our 
war — the political so-called generals ; that is, men like 
Butler, whose administrative qualities were called into 
use, or men like Grant, Sheridan, etc. ? " 

" The West Point men were the ablest men and the 
most efficient men by all odds. With one or two ex- 
ceptions only were men who became generals from civil 
life of any great noticeable success. Terry was and has 
remained so, a very able department commander, re- 
spected by all the army. Butler was not a military man. 
Every military element in him failed." 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 221 

"What do you think of him as an administrator ?" 
" Under the circumstances, as an administrator he 
was surpassing. You could not have got a better man 
for New Orleans. He was in his very element, in the 
place where his conscience worked in the direction of 
patriotism with remarkable shrewdness and success." 
" Did you work for Grant ? " 
" First, middle, and last." 

" You regarded him as a favorite with the people ? " 
" I am not in a situation to determine that. I only 
know that when his name was mentioned in any large 
audience where I was present he always carried the day 
with great enthusiasm." 

" How do you account for his non-renomination ? " 
" There were too many candidates with too strong a 
backing, and all combined they defeated him. What the 
enthusiasm of the public is and what the enthusiasm of 
the political managers is are two different things." 
" You knew Lincoln ? " 
" Very well." 

" In a sentence, what do you think of him ? " 
" I think that Lincoln was to a remarkable degree 
both a statesman and a politician ; that he based his 
views of expediency on great principles, but that in exe- 
cuting expedient objects he was as shrewd and keen a 
politician as ever was in Washington. He had a broad 
sympathy for human nature, and he understood it very 



222 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

well. He was as devoid of personal ambition and selfish- 
ness as any man of whom we have a record in our his- 
tory. He was a man who wanted to do that which was 
right and best for this whole nation, South and North, 
and was willing to go as near to the edge of doubtful ex- 
pediency as a man could go and not go over the preci- 
pice ; but he saved himself." 

It is almost needless to state that he was a champion 
of Lincoln when he received the nomination in i860. 
He believed that the election of Lincoln would precipi- 
tate a war between the North and South ; of course it 
was to be deplored, but he thought that the " impend- 
ing conflict " had better come then than to a future gen- 
eration. He took a very active part in the campaign, 
that resulted as he had predicted, both in and out of the 
pulpit. The democratic papers, notably the . New York 
Day-book, the favorite organ of the South in New York 
City, styled him the " political parson," a title afterward 
freely bestowed on the redoubtable " Parson Brownlow " 
during his lecture tour. 

As the war wore on and the question of Presidential 
candidates came up, he was outspoken in advocacy of 
Mr. Lincoln's re-election, and in the following campaign 
did much to secure that end. When finally the war was 
happily ended and peace declared he was the first to 
stretch the hand of reconciliation across the bloody 
chasm, and in an ever-memorable discourse preached the 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 223 

doctrine of brotherly love. The reoccupation of Fort 
Sumter and the raising of the old flag was made an occa- 
sion of national rejoicing, and Mr. Beecher was chosen 
as the orator of the day. But grave and gay as were the 
festivities of that hour, they paled into insignificance be- 
fore the return of the patriotic party from their mission 
of re-establishment in the presence of a bereavement that 
sent the nations of the earth in mourning to our national 
capital. The death of Lincoln stirred the deepest depths 
of Beecher's nature, and wrung from him a tribute of love 
and esteem and thoughtful appreciation that will be for- 
ever embalmed in the literature of the age. Apprehen- 
sive of discord at Washington, Mr. Beecher was one of 
the first to declare in favor of universal amnesty and im- 
partial suffrage. Friends fell from him in consequence. 
There were many who could not forgive and forget. 
They were willing to say " I forgive," but they had suf- 
fered too much to pretend to forget. These frowned on 
Mr. Beecher and accused him of being a time-server. At 
this he laughed as heartily as when the same people 
charged him with being foolhardy in his anti-slavery 
campaign. He said he could afford to wait, and he did. 
It is not necessary to allude in this connection to his 
political services during the war, if, indeed, his patriotic 
course can be considered political. In his address at Fort 
Sumter, in 1865, he spoke of a restored union of the 
North and South, and predicted resultant prosperity, 



224 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and this was the theme of his speeches for several years. 
A friend says : 

After the war Mr. Beecher instantly appealed to the 
people of the North to deal generously and magnani- 
mously with the South. Immediately after the surrender 
of Richmond he expressed in strong terms his desire for 
a complete reunion of the people North and South, and 
his opposition to any schemes of punishment or imposi- 
tion of penalties other than the mere abolition of slavery. 
The majority of his people, however, had become so ex- 
cited by the events of the war as to receive this advice 
with disfavor, and on the assassination of Lincoln, which 
happened while Mr. Beecher was at Fort Sumter, and 
therefore could know nothing about it, this feeling on the 
part of most of his friends became quite intense, and es- 
pecially strong among those who had not been known as 
Abolitionists before the war. Many of them informed 
him on his return that they would not consent to his ad- 
vocating general amnesty, as he had intimated his inten- 
tion of doing. It was the first time in which any of Mr. 
Beecher's friends had thought him too conservative, and 
the opposition to his views was the most vigorous that 
he had ever met with in his own circle. It made, how- 
ever, little difference with him. He persisted in oppos- 
ing the execution of Jefferson Davis, the confiscation of 
rebel property, and every form of punishment. The ab- 
olition of slavery he never regarded as a punishment at 






HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 225 

all, but rather as a benefit alike to the master and the 
slave. For more than a year this difference of opinion 
between him and the majority of his church continued, 
producing the only instance of what might be called alien- 
ation between them ever known in the history of the 
church. It was a singular fact, however, that in these 
views he was sustained by nearly every original Abolition- 
ist among his church members, and that the most strenu- 
ous opponents of his policy of conciliation were gentle- 
men who had been considered in former years as leaning 
somewhat toward the South. 

Says another account : 

His anti-slavery position was that of the Republi- 
can party — freedom national and slavery sectional. But 
while denying the right of the nation to interfere with 
slavery in the States, he insisted on the right of moral 
interference, and exercised it freely upon every fit occa- 
sion. In the trying times of 1866 he took sides with 
President Johnson in his controversy with the Repub- 
lican party, and rhetorically assigned to him a fame in 
history equal to that of Washington. His impetuous 
emotion betrayed him into many similar exaggerations. 
But his position at that time was an expression of his 
abiding faith that a policy of the largest clemency was 
the best policy of reconstruction. He had great compan- 
ions in this faith — Lincoln, and John A. Andrew, and 

General Grant, 
to 



226 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

In view of their friendship and political affiliations, it 
was generally expected that Beecher would support Hor- 
ace Greeley in the presidential campaign of 1872 ; but his 
gratitude to General Grant for many favors which he 
had enjoyed, as well as his high opinion of his abilities, 
led him to advocate his election. 

Mr. Beeeher's friendly attitude toward the recon- 
structed South, and his wish to visit that section of the 
country, led to a lecture tour in 1882, when he delivered 
his lecture on "The North and the South" in Rich- 
mond, Va. According to the newspapers, Mayor Car- 
rington, of Richmond, gives the following account of Mr. 
Beeeher's visit to that city : 

" One of the most dramatic events in the oratorical ca- 
reer of Henry Ward Beecher occurred in Richmond, in 
1882, during his lecturing tour through the South. The 
announcement that he was to lecture at Mozart Hall on 
' The North and the South ' filled the old building. It 
was his first appearance in Richmond since the war, and 
he was rather doubtful about the kind of reception he 
would get. When he walked out on the stage he saw 
before him a distinguished audience of Southerners, in- 
cluding several of the leading generals on the losing side. 
In the fourth row of the orchestra sat General Fitzhugh 
Lee, and just behind him, General Rosser, while near by 
were ex-Governor ' Extra Billy ' Smith and Governor 
Cameron. No applause greeted the great preacher as he 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 227 

stepped before the foot-lights. The ladies levelled their 
opera-glasses at him with cold curiosity, and the men 
looked coolly expectant. Some hisses from a few row- 
dies in the gallery did not tend to dispel the chilliness of 
the reception. 

" Mr. Beecher surveyed the audience calmly for a mo- 
ment, and then stepping directly in front of General Lee, 
he said : ' I have seen pictures of General Fitzhugh Lee, 
and I judge that you are the man ; am 1 right ? ' 

" The general, slightly taken aback by this direct ad- 
dress, nodded stiffly, while the audience bent forward 
breathless with curiosity as to what was going to follow. 

" ' Then,' said Mr. Beecher, his face lighting up, 'I 
want to offer you this right hand which, in its own way, 
fought against you and yours twenty-five years ago, but 
which I would now willingly sacrifice to make the Sunny 
South prosperous and happy. Will you take it, gen- 
eral ? ' 

" There was a moment's hesitation, a moment of death- 
like stillness in the hall, and then Fitzhugh Lee was on 
his feet, his hand was extended across the foot-lights, and 
was quickly met by the warm grasp of the preacher's. 

" At first there was a murmur, half of surprise and half of 
doubtfulness, from the audience ; then there was a hesitat- 
ing clapping of hands, and before Beecher had unloosed the 
hand of Robert E. Lee's nephew — now Governor of Vir- 
ginia — there were cheers such as were never before heard 



228 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in old Mozart, though it had been the scene of many a 
war and political meeting. 

" But that was only the beginning of the enthusiasm. 

"When the noise subsided Mr. Beecher said : 'When 
I go back home, I shall proudly tell that I have grasped 
the hand of the nephew of the great Southern chieftain ; 
I shall tell my people that I went to the Confederate 
capital with a heart full of love for the people whom my 
principles once obliged me to oppose, and that I was met 
half-way by the brave Southerners, who can forgive as 
well as they can fight.' 

" Five minutes of applause followed, and then Mr. 
Beecher, having gained the hearts of his audience, began 
his lecture and was applauded to the echo. That night 
he entered his carriage and drove to his hotel amid shouts 
such as had never greeted a Northern man in Richmond 
since the war." 

Although Mr. Beecher had been associated all his life 
with the Republican Party, and had achieved his greatest 
successes as a political speaker in connection with that 
party, and his weightiest influence had been acquired 
with the members of that party, when Mr. Cleveland 
was nominated for the Presidency in 1884 he openly ex- 
pressed his preference for the Democratic candidate, and 
before the close of the campaign cut loose entirely from 
his old party affiliations and made a number of telling 
speeches, in favor of the opposing candidate. Beginning 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS 229 

with a ringing speech at a great meeting in the Brooklyn 
Academy of Music, he followed it up with equally telling 
efforts at a business men's open-air meeting down-town, 
and at other gatherings in this city. This breaking loose 
from old ties brought down on him, of course, the resent- 
ment of many of his old party associates, and subjected 
him to much bitter animadversion ; but in this case, as in 
the opposition he aroused by his policy of conciliation at 
the close of the war, he listened to abuse with indiffer- 
ence, and smiled serenely at the impotent wrath of his 
traducers. 

Parishioners who had never wavered in their allegiance 
in the darkest days now angrily deserted him. Said an 
excellent lady : " I would not have believed him guilty if 
he had declared himself so in the pulpit, but I believe it 
mw" Such was the quality of partisan feeling. But, 
however unwise some of his public utterances, Mr. 
Beecher's support of Mr. Cleveland was one of the most 
deliberate, one of the least impulsive, actions of his life. 
In 1876 he was resolved, and openly declared, that if 
Blaine were nominated he would not support him. He 
never changed his mind. His course in 1884 proved his 
courage to the uttermost. But in this virtue he was 
never lacking. He was a consistent supporter of Presi- 
dent Cleveland's administration. In becoming a " Mug- 
wump," as has been shown, Mr. Beecher encountered 
opposition from his warmest friends in and out of his 



230 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

church. He had made Mr. Cleveland's acquaintance at 
Albany while he was governor, and it was mainly through 
him that General Horatio C. King's appointment on 
the governor's staff was secured. Governor Cleveland's 
famous letter to Mr. Beecher exonerating himself from 
certain grave and infamous charges convinced Mr. 
Beecher that he was maligned, and that the opposition 
were resorting to unfair weapons in employing scandal to 
encompass his defeat. He considered, besides, the most 
important issue in the campaign to be that of the Civil 
Service Reform advocated by Cleveland. Among the 
" Mugwumps " he found several old-time allies, including 
George William Curtis. 

It is to be related now, for the first time, that when 
there was a clamor on the part of the Democrats for a 
partisan appointment of the New York Postmaster, Mr. 
Beecher and Mr. Curtis saw President Cleveland on be- 
half of the incumbent, Mr. Pearson. President Cleve- 
land was on the horn of a dilemma between the Mug- 
wumps, advocating Civil Service Reform as expounded by 
himself — i.e., the retention in office of proper, faithful, 
and competent men, without regard to party affiliations — 
and his party, demanding removals of republican officials 
and their places for partisans. President Cleveland re- 
quested Messrs. Beecher and Curtis to name some Demo- 
crat who would be acceptable to them. But they de- 
clined, saying that they sought the retention of Mr. 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 23 1 

Pearson in the office purely on the grounds of Civil Ser- 
vice Reform, not partisan or personal ; that he had proved 
himself an efficient and faithful official, whose removal 
under the circumstances was not justifiable for any other 
than partisan reasons, and to give his place to a Demo- 
crat. President Cleveland hearkened to their wishes and 
counsel, and reappointed Mr. Pearson. 

While Mr. Beecher's course in regard to the election 
of Cleveland alienated many of his followers in the Re- 
publican Party, which he had been instrumental in creat- 
ing, he gained many admirers in the ranks of the De- 
mocracy in the South as well as in the North, and many 
resolutions of regret at his death were adopted by po- 
litical bodies which years ago bitterly denounced him. 
The sentiment of the Democratic Party in regard to him 
was voiced by the resolutions and speeches of the Young 
Men's Democratic Club of Brooklyn. At a meeting on 
the evening after his death, Mr. David A. Boody, chair- 
man of the Executive Committee, first took the floor, 
and offered the following resolution : 

"We meet to-night under the shadow of a national sor- 
row. All over the land, from the Atlantic to the Pacific, 
from Alaska to the Gulf, that shadow has spread. It 
has entered every hamlet with the announcement that 
" a prince and a great man has fallen." No matter what 
may be men's political affiliations, no matter what their 
religious creed, all feel to-day that they have been 



232 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

touched by a personal sorrow. Henry Ward Beecher's 
great heart seemed to have grown too large for any party, 
for any creed. It beat for humanity. Wherever men 
have struggled for better government or better morals, 
or wherever they have taught a higher manhood, they 
have been encouraged and inspired by him whom we 
now mourn. Wherever human limbs have worn the 
shackles of oppression, or the human mind has been un- 
der the bondage of ignorance and superstition, there may 
be found the records of this great life. While Henry 
Ward Beecher lived for the world, and the world is to-day 
doing homage to his memory, it is peculiarly fitting that 
we, his townsmen, we who have seen him so frequently 
in the life, who have witnessed his cheerful bearing, who 
have known his patient endurance when the clouds of 
sorrow and defamation rolled over his head — we who 
have been swayed and thrilled by an eloquence and an 
imagery all his own, should place upon our records some 
token indicating our sense of bereavement ; therefore, 

" Resolved, That the death of Henry Ward Beecher 
brings to us a personal grief, to our country a national 
affliction, and to the world an irreparable loss." 
Another member, Mr. E. M. Shepard, said : 
" As we are a political club and a Democratic body 
there was one element in Mr. Beecher's character that I 
should like to touch upon. He was not a politician, but 
a clergyman ; but he .differed from all other ministers in 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 233 

one quality. He had an extraordinary prescience. Mr. 
Beecher always read the signs of the time in regard to 
future political movements. He always knew what was 
coming. Looking backward, we have to admit that his 
judgment in advance in regard to political questions 
proved to be sound. For instance, take the slavery ques- 
tion. On that question he was right. The Democratic 
party now sees it. The moral question involved was 
overwhelming and sure to prevail in the end. Mr. Cal- 
houn said, after he had read one of Mr. Beecher's earlier 
speeches on the subject : c Mr. Beecher has the kernel of 
the subject. Slavery is morally wrong.' Then the War 
of the Rebellion came. I used as a boy to look with 
hostility upon political sermons. I would go to Mr. 
Beecher's church and burn with indignation while he 
preached upon political subjects ; but he was right. Then 
came the days of reconstruction, when we Democrats 
saw what we considered dastardly and tyrannical at- 
tempts to give suffrage to ignorant slaves. I still think 
it was wrong, but it had to be done in order to blot out 
sectional differences. He was again right. Then, again, 
when he stood upon the battlements of Sumter he struck 
the key-note when he said that the main thing to be done 
was to insist that the rights of white, as well as of the 
black, men should be regarded. He was in a very small 
minority, and this action caused intense bitterness against 
him ; but he was right. Then on the money question we 



234 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

were far astray. Beecher was right then. It is not out 
of place to say that when Mr. Beecher died he was a 
Democrat. To be sure, at different times he was forced 
by his convictions to go against the Democratic Party, 
but its fundamental principles he always advocated. Mr. 
Beecher was sound on the question of tariff reform and 
Civil Service. He recognized as few men did that when 
the sentimental questions evolved by the war were set- 
tled but two questions remained for the consideration 
of the people, namely, the administrative question and 
that of taxation. There has never been a man outside 
of politics of so sound a political foresight. I say more : 
there have been few men in practical politics who were 
so intelligent, so patriotic, so beneficent as he." 

The resolution was unanimously adopted. 

" His own party " has also adopted appropriate reso- 
lutions regretting his death, as shown by the action of 
the New York Republican Club in the following reso- 
lution : 

" This club has received with profound regret the in- 
telligence of the death of Henry Ward Beecher. He 
was throughout the anti-slavery struggle that resulted in 
the formation of the Republican Party one of the fore- 
most champions of liberty and equal rights. The early 
years of this party were largely supported by his great 
powers, and to few, aside from the chief generals in the 
field, did the cause of the Union owe more during the 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 235 

dark days of the Rebellion. Possessed of extraordinary 
powers as an orator and thinker, he was ever ready to 
use them, not only in the cause of religion, his chosen 
field, but in behalf of every movement that tended to the 
extension of the rights or the amelioration of the con- 
dition of humanity. This club; recognizing his great ser- 
vices to the party and to the country, desires to place on 
record this expression of its sense of the loss his death 
has occasioned to the entire civilized world." 

The following report from the New York Tribune, 
October 23, 1884, of a speech at a meeting in Brooklyn, 
in which Mr. Beecher explained his course in regard to 
Cleveland and his conversion to Mugwumpism, is inter- 
esting in this connection : 

At the Brooklyn Rink, last evening, Henry Ward Beecher told 
a crowded audience his reasons for supporting Cleveland in prefer- 
ence to Blaine. The meeting was held under the auspices of the 
Brooklyn Independents. Mr. Beecher began by expressing his 
regrets that he found himself compelled to oppose the Republican 
nominee. " My appearance here to antagonize the organized action 
of the Republican Party," said he, " is a fact of very significant 
character. Before many of you were born I rocked the cradle of 
the Republican Party." He then briefly but eloquently sketched 
his work for the Republican Party, eliciting frequent outbursts of 
applause. Then he gave his reasons for opposing it. " I don't 
mean to be a pall-bearer to carry the coffin of the Republican 
Party to the grave. It is going down to destruction unless you 
switch it off on to a side-track." He next expressed the solemnity 



236 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

of his feelings on finding himself opposed to the party he had so 
long fought for. " My whole spirit and whole soul is as solemn as 
on any day that I remember of my whole life. I am in dead ear- 
nest." Then followed a reference to the achievements of the Re- 
publican Party and a glance into the future. ' ' There are two great 
dangers," he said, "that threaten our Government. One is the 
growing influence of wealth ; the other is the danger that comes 
from the corruption of power too long in the same hands." A ref- 
erence to the growing greed for wealth followed. " We are a 
money-making people," he said, " to an incredible extent. Protec- 
tion is a vast scheme of taxation. It rolls into the reservoirs at 
Washington four hundred millions of dollars every year, and one 
hundred millions of dollars lie pulseless and useless there to-day." 
Next was portrayed the extent of corruption — votes bought, judge- 
ships bought, and so on. " To-day," he said, " it is sought to buy 
a candidate into the Presidential chair with money. I have been 
credibly informed that between one and two millions of dollars 
have been rolled West to gild the State of Ohio, and another like 
stream is pouring into Indiana. The day is coming when we shall 
be honey-combed by corruption." He asked which candidate 
would be more likely to resist this canker of corruption, and fol- 
lowed with a series of sneering questions which, without directly 
stating, implied that Mr. Blaine was a very corrupt and unfit man. 
Mr. Beecher next gave an account of many of the good things 
and some of the bad things the Republican Party had done in the 
past. He dilated on the dangers of official corruption, and said many 
hard things of Mr. Blaine, and implied more, but gave him credit 
for possessing many personal and social attractions. " If you vote 
for Blaine," said he, " you vote for corruption ; if you vote for St. 
John, you vote into the air ; if you vote for Butler, you vote into 
the mud ; if you vote for Cleveland you vote for an honest man." 



HIS CAREER IN POLITICS. 2$? 

Mr. Beecher next touched upon Cleveland's moral character, and 
instantly people were on the tiptoe of expectation. 

"The air is murky," he said, "with shameless stones of Mr. 
Cleveland's private life. To our sorrow and shame we find cocka- 
trice-eggs hatched by rash and credulous clergymen. They could 
not go to Mr. Cleveland with honest inquiry ; so they open their 
ears to the harlot and drunkard. They have sought by irrespon- 
sible slander to poison the faith of holy men and innocent women. 
Do these ministers ever reflect that the guilt of a vice or a crime 
measures the guilt of him who charges it falsely ? My honored 
and beloved wife, quite unbeknown to me, cut many clippings 
from the newspapers, all of which reflected on the life of Mr. 
Cleveland at Albany, and sent them to him with a letter that will 
not be published, but that would be a gem in English literature if 
it were published. As quick as the mail could return she received 
from Governor Cleveland a letter which I have had between two 
and three weeks, and which he meant to be private and marked 
' private ; ' but such complexion has the canvass taken that I tele- 
graphed to him two nights ago to ask if he would allow me to use 
my discretion in regard to that letter. His reply was, ' Certainly, 
if it is your judgment.' Now I will read Governor Cleveland's 
letter." Mr. Beecher then read the famous letter, which is too 
well known to need repetition here. As he read the portion 
wherein Mr. Cleveland emphatically denied that he had been guilty 
of improper conduct during his residence in Albany, the audience 
indulged in vociferous and prolonged cheering. 

There was loud applause when Mr. Beecher finished reading 
the letter. When it had died away he continued, with much 
visible emotion : " When in the gloomy night of my own suffer- 
ings, in years gone by, I sounded every depth of sorrow, I 
vowed that if God would bring the day star of hope to me, I would 



238 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

never suffer brother, friend, or neighbor to go unfriended, should 
a like serpent seek to crush him. [Applause.] That oath I will 
regard now, because I know the bitterness of venomous lies. I will 
stand against infamous lies t*hat seek to sting to death a man, a 
magistrate worthy of a better fate. Men counsel me to ponder 
lest I stir again my own griefs. No, I will not be frightened. If 
I refuse to interpose a shield of well-placed confidence between 
Governor Cleveland and the swarm of liars that wallow in the mud 
of slander, may my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth and 
may my right hand forget its cunning ! I will imitate the noble 
example set me by Plymouth Church in the day of my calamity. 
They were not ashamed of my burden. They stood by me with 
God-inspired loyalty. It was an heroic deed. They have set my 
duty before me. I will imitate their example, and as long as I 
have breath I will not see a man attacked by serpents or venomous 
stinging insects, and not, if I believe him to be honest, stand with 
him and for him against all comers." [Loud applause.] 



CHAPTER X. 

HIS LITERARY LIFE. 

Journalistic and Literary Experience. — The New York Independent.—^ 
The Christian Union. — Star Papers. — List of His Books. — Reluc- 
tance at Literary Composition. — His First Work, " Lectures to 
Young Men." — Success of the Book. — Its Enormous Sale. — First 
Work of an Indiana Author reprinted in England. — How He re- 
garded It. — Summary of the Lectures. — Industry and Idleness. — 
Pointed Sentences and Telling Truths. — A Forcible Style. — Dishon- 
esty and its Consequences. — Evils of Riches as Such. — "The Portrait 
Gallery." — Gamblers and Gambling. — " The Strange Woman." — The 
Theatre and Its Evils. — Views modified in Later Life. — Mr. Beecher 
and Henry Irving. 

Mr. Beecher's journalistic and literary work is in it- 
self a magnificent monument to his memory. As stated 
elsewhere, his first journalistic experience was as editor of 
the Cincinnati Journal, and he subsequently conducted, 
at Indianapolis, the Western Farmer and Gardener, as a 
matter of recreation. When the New York Independent 
was started he became a regular contributor to its col- 
umns, and from 1861 to 1864 he was its editor-in-chief. 
Finding his editorial duties somewhat onerous, he then 
resigned his position, and was succeeded by Theodore 
Tilton ; but he continued for several years to contribute 
at least one article weekly to the columns of the paper. 



240 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

These articles were signed with an asterisk, and thus be- 
came known as " Star Papers." The most striking of 
them were afterward published in book form with the 
above title, and had a very wide sale. 

In 1870 he became editor of The Christian Union, a 
position which he held for three or four years ; after his 
retirement he contributed to the columns of the paper as 
he had contributed to The Indepeiident after resigning its 
editorial chair. By his work on these papers he exerted 
wide influence on the public thought of his time. Those 
journals under his charge were in fact foremost among 
the leading vital forces in American journalism. 

Few persons know what an immense amount of liter- 
ary work Mr. Beecher accomplished. The following is 
a list of the published works : 

Sermons, ten volumes of 475 pages each. 

Sermons, four volumes of 600 pages each. 

" A Summer Parish," 240 pages. 

" Yale Lectures on Preaching," first, second, and third 
series. 

" Lectures to Young Men," 506 pages. 

" Star Papers," 600 pages. 

" Pleasant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming," 
498 pages. 

" Lecture Room Talks," 384 pages. 

" Norwood ; or, Village Life in New England," 549 
pages. 



HIS LITERARY LIFE. 24 1 

" The Overture of Angels." 

" Eyes and Ears ; or, Thoughts as They Occur." 

" Freedom and War." 

" Royal Truths." 

" Views and Experiences of Religious Subjects." 

" Life of Jesus the Christ." 

This is in addition to his writings on agricultural, po- 
litical, and general subjects, his routine work, and special 
trips for lecturing or speaking. He was always greatly 
interested in church music, more especially in the form 
of congregational singing, and one of the first things 
done by the new pastor from the West, when he took 
charge of Plymouth Church, was to compile a book of 
hymns and tunes for the use of his own and sister 
churches. 

A curious circumstance in connection with his literary 
work was that he disliked the effort of writing, and it 
was often hard work for publishers to get " copy " from 
him at a stated time. The writing of his novel " Nor- 
wood " was a particularly painful task, and he was sorry, 
during the continuance of the work, that he had ever be- 
gun it. His first volume was " Lectures to Young 
Men," published in 1845, with a second edition in 1846, 
and of these two editions more than sixty thousand 
copies were sold. The " Lectures" in 1873 were added 
to a uniform edition of Mr. Beecher's works. Indiana 
people are specially proud of this book, as it was the first 



242 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

book by an author residing in that State which was hon- 
ored with republication in England. Mr. Beecher says 
that the lectures were carefully written, and they cer- 
tainly bear internal evidence of his fidelity to his work 
in the early years of his life. A short time before his 
death he told a friend that he once contemplated revis- 
ing them for a new edition, but after a careful examina- 
tion he did not think he could materially improve them, 
and had consequently abandoned the idea. 

A summary of these lectures deserves a place in this 
memorial. The entire series may be read with pleasure 
and profit, not only by young men, to whom they were 
particularly addressed, but by everybody. They are re- 
markable for their freshness and originality, are clear as 
the day, and forcibly expressed. 

In the first lecture, " Industry and Idleness " are dealt 
with. The lecturer's aversion to the bustling do-nothings 
who can accomplish least with the loudest noise is very ap- 
parent. " The supine sluggard is no more indolent than 
the bustling do-nothing. Men may walk much, and read 
much, and talk much, and pass the day without an un- 
occupied moment, and yet be substantially idle ; because 
Industry requires at least the intention of usefulness." 
The lecture is divided into sections, the first dealing with 
the lazy man, whose failing, he says, is described by 
Solomon : " How long wilt thou sleep, O sluggard ? 
when wilt thou awake out of sleep ? . . . He is val= 



HIS LITERARY LIFE. 243 

iant at sleeping and at the trencher; but for other courage, 
the slothful man saith^ There is a lion without ; I shall be 
slain in the street. . . . His lands run to waste, his 
fences are dilapidated, his crops chiefly of weeds and 
brambles ; a shattered house " completing the picture. 
" This is the very castle of Indolence." 

The second idler is as useless as the first, for, if active, 
it is in other people's business than his own. The third 
idler follows no vocation. " He defrauds his laundress, 
his tailor, and his landlord. He gambles, and swears, and 
fights— when he is too drunk to be afraid." 

The fourth in the list excites pity. Beginning life 
thriftily, he has become involved in other men's affairs, 
and has gone down in their ruin. He begins again, and is 
once more ruined. He then sinks into despondency, out 
of which nothing can arouse him, and he lives and dies 
a discouraged man. 

The fashionable idler comes next, with " a fine form 
and manly beauty, and his chief end in life is to display 
them. . . . Gay and frivolous, rich and useless, polished 
till the enamel is worn off, his whole life serves only to 
make him an animated puppet of pleasure." 

The last picture is of the business man who wishes to 
subsist by his occupation while he attends to pleasure. 
After a few years he fails, and sinks to a lower grade of 
idleness and to ruin. 

Turning to Industry, the lecturer says a hearty Indus- 



244 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

try, with the aid of health, good appetite, and good di- 
gestion, promotes happiness. " The slave is often hap- 
pier than the master, who is nearer undone by license 
than his vassal by toil." . . . " Industry is the parent 
of Thrift, and is a substitute for Genius." 

Reference is made to scheming speculations which pro- 
duce among the young an aversion to the slow accumu- 
lations of ordinary industry. " But if the butterfly de- 
rides the bee in summer, he was never known to do it in 
the lowering days of autumn." 

Luck is disposed of in very few words. " I never knew 
an early-rising, hard-working, prudent man, careful of his 
earnings, and strictly honest, who complained of bad luck 
. . . the worst of all luck is to be a sluggard, a knave, 
or a tippler." 

" Indolence is a great spendthrift, and as surely runs to 
dishonesty as lying." 

Temptations to indolence are stated as the results of 
wretched training, youthful indulgences, and example. 

" The example of political men, office-seekers, and pub- 
lic officers, is not always conducive to Industry. . . . 
Had I a son able to gain a livelihood by toil, I had rather 
bury him than witness his beggarly supplications for office ; 
— sneaking along the path of men's passions to gain his 
advantage ; holding in the breath of his honest opinions ; 
and breathing feigned words of flattery to hungry ears, 
popular or official ; and crawling, viler than a snake, 



HIS LITERARY LIFE. 245 

through all the unmanly courses by which ignoble wretches 
purloin the votes of the dishonest, the drunken, and the 
vile." 

Lecture II. is devoted to " Dishonesty." Temporary 
prosperity in speculation and the sudden reverse of for- 
tune is given as the cause of the prevalence of dishonesty 
through the country in these days. " These times will 
pass away ; but like ones will come again. As physicians 
study the causes and record the phenomena of plagues and 
pestilences, to draw from them an antidote against their 
recurrence, so should we leave to another generation a 
history of moral plagues as the best antidote to their re- 
curring malignity." 

" Some men find in their bosom from the first a vehe- 
ment inclination to dishonest ways. Knavish propensities 
are inherent ; born with the child and transmissible from 
parent to son. ... A child naturally fair-minded may 
become dishonest by parental example. . . . Dishon- 
esty is learned from one's employers. . . . Extrav- 
agance is a prolific source of Dishonesty . . . and 
Debt is an inexhaustible fountain of Dishonesty." There 
are moral dishonesties, allowed by law, and political dis- 
honesties, which " breed dishonesties of every kind." " A 
corrupt public sentiment produces Dishonesty . . . and 
frequent executive clemency has been a temptation" 
thereto. We are advised to hope for a more cheerful 
future, and young men are implored to be worthy of them- 



246 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER 

selves and of their ancestry. " May you settle down, as 
did Israel of old, a people of God in a promised and pro- 
tected land — true to yourselves, true to your country, and 
true to your God." 

In Lecture III. we are warned against thinking that 
riches necessarily confer happiness, and poverty unhappi- 
ness ; against making haste to be rich ; against covetous- 
ness, which is both unprofitable and breeds misery ; 
against selfishness, seeking wealth by covert dishonesty, 
or by violent extortion, or any flagrant villany. 

" Riches got by deceit cheat no man so much as the 
getter. Riches bought with guile, God will pay for with 
vengeance. Riches got by fraud are dug out of one's 
heart, and destroy the mine. Unjust riches curse the 
owner in getting, in keeping, in transmitting. They 
curse his children in their father's memory, in their own 
wasteful habits, in drawing around them ail bad men to 
be their companions. . . . For the love of money is 
the root of all evil, which, while some have coveted after, 
they have erred from the faith, and pierced themselves 
through zvith many sorrows." 

" The Portrait Gallery," Lecture IV., is a series of vivid 
pictures of dangerous men, who, owing to the instinct of 
imitation, are often the cause of deadly injury even to 
strangers to them. In these are included the Wit, per- 
verted ; the Coarse Humorist ; the Cynic, " who never sees 
a good quality in a man, and never fails to see a bad one," 



HIS LITERARY LIFE. 247 

and who is termed a " human owl ; " the Libertine, who is 
" proud to be viler than other men ; " the artful, cunning, 
and pretending Politician, including the Demagogue, 
" who seeks to gratify an invariable selfishness by pre- 
tending to seek the public good ; " also, the Party Man, 
who, while preferring that " his own side should be vic- 
torious by the best means and under the best men, rather 
than lose the victory will consent to any means, and fol- 
low any man." 

" Evil men of every degree will use you, flatter you, 
lead you on until you are useless ; then, if the virtuous 
do not pity you, or God compassionate, you are without 
a friend in the universe." 

In " Gamblers and Gambling," Lecture V., we have a 
strong and earnest warning to young men against the 
vice -of gambling, the " Rake's Progress " being graphically 
described from the first pack of cards and small stakes to 
the luxurious gambling hell, and later destitution, and 
ruin. " The wise man foreseeth the evil ; fools pass on and 
are punished? 

" The Strange Woman " is the title of Lecture VI. It 
is an open warning against licentiousness, and a con- 
demnation of the criminal fastidiousness which would 
avoid the subject. Referring to the general subject, and 
to obscene books, he says: "Men who, at home, allow 
Don Juan to lie within reach of every reader, will not 
allow a minister of the Gospel to expose the evil of such 



248 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a literature." The injunction of God to the young upon 
the ensnaring danger of beauty, and her wiles of love and 
dress, is set before the auditor in strong colors. But " it 
is too late ! He has gone in — who shall never return. He 
goetJi after her straightway as an ox goeth to the slaugh- 
ter ; or as a fool to the correction of the stocks . . . 
and knoweth not that it is for his life.''' 1 And then we are 
introduced to the five wards of Pleasure, Satiety, Dis- 
covery, Disease, and Death, and there is a final warning 
against indulging in morbid imaginations, evil compan- 
ions, evil books and pictures. 

The final lecture is a reprehension of unworthy pleas- 
ures, in which the circus, the theatre, gambling, cock- 
fighting, bear-baiting, pugilistic contests, and racing are 
dealt with in an original and characteristic manner, 
and discountenanced for their waste of time and money, 
and as being incompatible with the pursuits of every-day 
life. He says " Those who defend Theatres would scorn 
to admit actors into their society," and contends that the 
general fact is not altered by notable and honorable ex- 
ceptions. 

"In the bosom of that everlasting storm which rains 
perpetual misery in hell, shalt thou, Corrupter of Youth ! 
be forever hidden from our view, and may God wipe out 
the very thoughts of thee from our memory." 

In the later years of his life Mr. Beecher's views of the 
drama were somewhat modified, as he occasionally went 



HIS LITERARY LIFE. 249 

to the theatre when the performance was of the best class, 
thereby securing the enmity of some of his Christian 
brethren. He admired Edwin Booth, John McCullough, 
Charlotte Cushman, and a few others of similar promi- 
nence and standing, but was outspoken as ever in his de- 
nunciation of sensational or indecent plays or perform- 
ances. When Mr. Beecher was in London in 1886 Rev. 
Dr. Parker gave a dinner, and the menu card is an inter- 
esting souvenir. It bears Dr. Parker's name, that of his 
wife, and those of Mr. Beecher, Mrs. Beecher,. Henry 
Irving, and Ellen Terry. Mr. Beecher admired Mr. Irving 
as a great artist, and Mr. Irving admired him as a great 
orator. The two could meet on common ground and be 
entirely congenial. Miss Terry was a no less enthusiastic 
admirer of Mr. Beecher than Mr. Irving. 



CHAPTER XL 

HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 

Sixteen Years a Contributor to the New York Ledger. — How His Connec- 
tion with the Paper Began. — " A Cannon-ball in the Hat." — Suggest- 
ions for a Novel. — How "Norwood" came to be Written. — Mr. 
Beecher's Dilatoriness. — His Outline of the Story. — Mr. Beecher's 
Fondness for Horses. — Riding behind Dexter. — Introducing Mr. Bon- 
ner to London Punch. — Comments on Edward Everett's Death. 
— How He Misspelled. — Answering Troublesome Questions. — De- 
nial of Current Rumors. — Never played Cards. — Visiting Bonner's 
Stables. 

Of the hundreds of men in all walks of life whom 
Mr. Beecher called his friends, there were probably few 
in whom he placed greater trust or to whom he imparted 
more of his confidence, than Robert Bonner. For nearly 
twenty years the two were intimate. Week after week, 
for sixteen years, Mr. Beecher's contributions were leading 
features of the Ledger. 

" In all my intercourse with men," said Mr. Bonner, 
" I never met a man like Henry Ward Beecher, and 
never expect to again. He was sui generis ; and a genius, 
if ever there was one. In losing him the world loses a 
man whose individuality and personal influence have 
scarcely ever been equalled. As a friend he was gener- 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 25.I 

ous, noble- hearted, and self-sacrificing, and he was always 
doing or saying something to make him the more ad- 
mired and beloved by his friends." 

The acquaintance of Mr. Bonner and Mr. Beecher, 
which afterward ripened into warm friendship, was 
brought about through a letter sent in November, 1858, 
by the preacher to Mr. Bonner, calling his attention to a 
story in manuscript written by a young lady, and re- 
questing the publisher to read it, and, if he deemed it 
good enough, to print it in the Ledger. Mr. Bonner 
replied that he did not care for the young lady's efforts, 
but that he would like to number Mr. Beecher among 
his contributors, and enclosed a good-sized check as an 
earnest of his disposition to pay liberally for anything 
from the preacher's pen. Out of this grew an arrange- 
ment by which Mr. Beecher became a regular weekly 
contributor to the Ledger s columns, beginning in Janu- 
ary, 1859, and continuing with few interruptions until 
1874. The first article contributed by the already fa- 
mous preacher was one of a series which he called 
" Thoughts as They Occur, by One who keeps his Eyes 
and Ears Open," and was entitled " A Cannon-ball in the 
Hat," and is pointed to by Mr. Bonner as an excellent 
example of his free, off-hand, simple, and yet attractive 
style. 

It was in 1865 that Mr. Bonner suggested to the Ply- 
mouth pastor that he write a novel. It required little 



252 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

urging to get him to consent to this, but it was quite 
another thing to get the manuscript or any evidence that 
Mr. Beecher intended to carry out his agreement. He 
was naturally dilatory, and would only write when driven 
to it by his wife or publisher. After waiting for nearly 
two years, the first instalment of " Norwood," which was 
the only novel ever written by Mr. Beecher, was placed 
in Mr. Bonner's hands, and was printed in 1867. For this 
story Mr. Beecher received $30,000, transferring all his 
right, title, and interest in it to Mr. Bonner for that sum. 
The latter, after running it serially in the Ledger, pub- 
lished it in book form, and realized a clear profit of $10,000 
from its sale. There was a large demand for it in the 
Southern States. 

On January 3, 1866, in response to numerous inquiries 
from Mr. Bonner as to the progress he was making with 
the novel, Mr. Beecher sent him this sketch : 

" My dear Mr. Bonner : I know that you have a 
good right to know something of the story of which you 
kindly inquire, and will give you some insight into mat- 
ters. 

" I could have written a sketchy and superficial story 
with perhaps a few weeks' effort. But the more I re- 
flected the less I liked to do so. The very liberal terms 
which you proposed to me seemed to me to merit, not 
merely a story , but, if I could, one that would be as good 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 253 

twenty years hence as on the day it appeared. To do 
this it was not enough that I should have leisure, but that 
I should get my mind out of the run of public questions 
in which I have been so deeply concerned, and trained to 
a very different line of thought. 

" I propose to make a story which shall turn, not so 
much on outward action (though I hope to have enough 
to carry the story handsomely) as on certain mental or in- 
ward questions. I propose to delineate a high and noble 
man, trained to New England theology, but brought to 
excessive distress by speculations and new views. This 
I feel quite competent to manage. 

" The heroine is to be large of soul, a child of nature, 
and, although a Christian, yet in childlike sympathy with 
the truths of God in the autumn world, instead of books. 

" These two, the man of philosophy and theology and 
the woman of nature and simple truth, are to act upon 
each other, and she is to triumph. 

" I propose introducing a full company of various New 
England characters, to give a real view of the inside of a 
New England town — its brewing thought, its inventive- 
ness, its industry and enterprise, its education and shrewd- 
ness and tact. I purpose to introduce a Southerner of a 
rather noble type and show him off, faults and virtues, on 
this background of New England, and I may transfer the 
story in its close to the seat of war and introduce one of 
its campaigns. But it may so grow on my hands that I 



254 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

shall leave that for a separate effort. I am convinced that 
I have been wise in waiting, and that I shall be far more 
likely to succeed than I should have done if I had 
plunged at once into the matter, without study and medi- 
tation. 

" As to time, I do not see that I can promise with any 
confidence to give you MSS. before May next. But by 
that time I hope to be so well assured of my work as to 
be willing to have the story begun, and also to have it so 
far advanced that you can be able to judge of its merits 
before beginning to print. 

" I am not neglecting you because I seem quiet, I as- 
sure you, and I hope to make haste much faster by and 
by for waiting hitherto. 

" I am like a painter commissioned to execute a large 
picture, whose room is full of studies and sketches, and 
his big canvas is sketched out and ready — all done but 
the painting." 

" I have seldom met a man," said Mr. Bonner, " so 
passionately fond of animals, and especially of horses, as 
was Mr. Beecher. He was thoroughly in sympathy with 
nature. One of his chief delights was to be among 
horses, and to ride behind a swift stepper for an hour or 
two seemed to intoxicate him. He was almost as fond 
of Dexter as of one of his own children, and never missed 
an opportunity to take a ride with me behind that noble 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 255 

animal. Sometimes his glee was childish. I remember 
one afternoon we were driving through a street in Brook- 
lyn when he espied the Rev. Dr. Storrs soberly pacing 
the sidewalk. He could not resist the temptation to 
stop and tell him the name of the horse that was draw- 
ing us, point out his merits, and describe the manner in 
which he moved on a good road. The good Doctor 
seemed rather bored, but in his exuberance Mr. Beecher 
did not stop to consider whether Dr. Storrs was inter- 
ested in horses or not. 

" In nearly every letter he ever wrote to me — and I 
sometimes received three or four a week — he made some 
reference to my horses. Shortly after I had made his 
acquaintance he addressed to me what I regard as one of 
the best pieces of word-painting on a similar subject in 
the English language, and which I published at the time. 
It was written early in the spring, and soon after he had 
had a discussion with someone as to the humanity of 
fast driving. Listen ! " And Mr. Bonner read this, en- 
thusiastically drawing attention to the parts which most 
caught his fancy : 

" My dear Mr. Bonner : You once promised me a 
ride with your never-to-be-excelled horses, and to-day is 
the very day for it. The sky is clear. It is a long while 
since we have had high, bright, clear days. They have 
been sad and cloudy. Sometimes snow, sometimes rain, 



256 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

sometimes a miserable compromise between both. But 
to-day is of one mind, and that a good mind. Nature 
is in her sweet and grand mood. It is the first day on 
which she cared to have it known that her mind was 
made up to have spring weather. The secret is out now. 
Snow is melting. I saw grass with fresh growth of green 
this very morning. No birds yet. But the grass said 
birds as plainly as if it had spoken English. They cannot 
be far off. 

" Is not this a day for a ride ? No mud yet. The road 
is hard and moist. Just the kind for a spin. For I do 
not want any of your lazy, jogging gaits. I am entirely 
of your mind that, if a horse has had swiftness put in 
him, it is fair to give him a chance to develop his gifts. 
Of course there is a bound. Reason in all things. Even 
in trotting it is easier for some horses to go twelve miles 
an hour than for others to go three. They were made so. 
Does it hurt a swallow to go swifter than an ox ? Why 
not ? Because he was made so. It is easy to do the 
thing we were made to do easily. And a good horse 
was made on purpose to go fast. He does it when wild 
of his own accord. He does not lose the relish of speed 
even when domesticated. 

" Take a fine-bred horse, who in harness looks as if he 
were a pattern of moderation, a very deacon of sobriety, 
and turn him loose in pasture. Whew, what a change ! 
He takes one or two steps slowly, just to be sure you 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 257 

have let go of him, and then with a squeal he lets fly his 
heels high in the air, till the sun flashes from his polished 
shoes, and then off he goes, faster and fiercer, clear across 
the lot, till the fence brings him up. And then, with his 
eye flashing, his mane lifted and swelling, his tail up 
like a king's sceptre, he snorts a defiance at you from afar, 
and, with a series of rearings, running sideways, pawings 
and plungings, friskings and whirls, he starts again, with 
immense enjoyment, into another round of running. Do 
you not see that it is more than fun ? It is ecstasy. It 
is horse rapture ! 

" I never see such a spectacle that I am not painfully 
impressed with the inhumanity of not letting horses run. 
Fastness is a virtue. Our mistaken moderation is de- 
priving him of it. I drive fast on principle. I do it for 
the sake of being at one with nature. To drive slow, 
only and always, is to treat a horse as if he were an ox. 
You may be slow if you think proper. But your horse 
should be kept up to nature. He would have had but 
two legs if it was meant that he should go only on a 
* go-to-meeting ' pace. He has four legs. Of course 
he ought to do a great deal with them. 

" Now, why do I say these things to you ? Not to 
convince you of your duty. But I feared lest, taking me 
out to ride, you would be disposed to think that / had 
scruples, and would jog along moderately, as if doing me 
a favor. Not at all. The wind does not go fast enough 

IX* 



258 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to suit me. If I were an engineer of a sixty-mile-an- 
hour express train, I should cover twenty miles an hour 
more. 

" Let the horses be well groomed — well harnessed. 
Let the wagon be thoroughly looked to — no screw loose, 
no flaw just ready to betray us. Mount. I am by your 
side. The whip is not needed. *Yet let it stand in its 
place, the graceful hint of authority in reserve, which is 
always wholesome to men and horses. 

" Now get out of town cautiously. No speed here. 
This is a place for sobriety, moderation, and propriety in 
driving. But once having shaken off the crowd, I give 
you a look, and disappear instantly in a wild excitement, 
as if all the trees were crazy, and had started off in a 
race, as if the fences were chalk-lines, as if the earth and 
skies were commingled, and everything were wildly 
mixed in a supernatural excitement, neither of earth nor 
of the skies ! 

" The wind has risen since we started ! It did not 
blow at this rate, surely ! These tears are not of sorrow. 
But really this going like a rocket is new to every sense. 
Do not laugh if I clutch the seat more firmly. I am not 
afraid. It is only excitement. You may be used to this 
bird's business of flying. But don't draw the rein. I 
am getting calm. See that play of muscle! Splendid 
machinery was put into these horses. Twenty-horse- 
power at least in each ! And how they enjoy it ! No 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 259 

forcing here. They do it to please themselves, and thank 
you for a chance ! Look at that head ! Those ears 
speak like a tongue ! The eyes flash with eagerness and 
will ! Is it three miles ? Impossible ! It is not more 
than a mile and a half ! 

" Well, draw up. Let me get off now and see these 
brave creatures. What ! not enough yet ? No painful 
puffing, no throbbing of the flanks. They step nervously 
and champ the bit, and lean to your caresses, as if they 
said, ' All this we have done to please jj/#& : now just let 
us go on to please ourselves ! ' " 

" Mr. Beecher was a ' man of infinite jest,' " continued 
Mr. Bonner. " He was full of funny stories and quaint 
and original witticisms, and in story, lecture, or sermon 
he seldom missed spinning a good yarn to point a moral. 
His letters were almost invariably in a jocular strain, and 
he never missed an opportunity to turn a point against 
the man who sent it. I remember on one occasion of 
sending him a proof-sheet of one of his articles and of 
making some comments on it which I suggested to him 
were funny enough to entitle me to a position on the 
London Punch. The messenger who took the proof 
brought a letter back which ran like this : 

" ' To the Editor of London Punch : Robert Bon- 
ner desires an engagement on your paper. It gives me 



200 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

pleasure to testify to his good character. No other one 
man has made me laugh so much. Just to look at him 
would make one feel good-natured, and I. would suggest 
that his picture be published. He has but one fault. 
Should he begin by contributing to the Punch he would 
in less than two years own and edit it ; but otherwise he 
may be trusted. H. W. BEECHER.' 

" On December 19, 1873, he wrote to tell me of an 
accident that had befallen him in one of Brooklyn's 
streets in this somewhat terse style : 

" ' Got tumbled out of wagon last week. Didn't hurt. 
Horses ran away. Didn't hurt 'em. Wagon broke. 
Did hurt. Got to pay for it. My boys laugh at me. 
Say I'm getting old. Must take them along to drive for 
me. Wait ! ' 

" It was shortly after he had agreed to write ' Nor- 
wood ' for me that this rather significant paragraph ap- 
peared in one of his letters to me : 

" ' I cannot remember a year for fifteen years in which 
I have not been told that I had reached the end of my 
influence. I surely must at length reach it, and it may 
be of use to the ends of humility to keep the fact daily 
before me, that I may not be purled up.' 

" A letter bearing the date April 23, 1870, sent by him 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 26l 

to explain his reasons for sending his weekly manuscript 
earlier than usual, is characteristic and a fair sample of 
hundreds that I have filed away. He writes : 

" ' I go to New Haven for my lecture before the Di- 
vinity School, and don't get back till Friday morning or 
noon — too late — so I send copy. Oh, that I could always 
take time by the forelock and work beforehand ! But, 
like Dexter, I can't trot in the stable. I must be brought 
out and put on the road, and have something behind me 
as well as a good road before me. There never was a 
horse so good as not to be better for a good driver.' 

"A note dated January 18, 1865, just after Edward 
Everett's death, contained this expression : 

" ' I really feel Everett's death more than I could have 
believed. Till within five years I have not been in sym- 
pathy with him. But since the Rebellion he has done 
so nobly that I remember only that, and feel that the 
country has lost a true patriot. You have also lost a 
faithful friend, true, honorable, and — thanks largely to 
the Ledger — a friend to the common people. It is not 
often that a whole land and its government are so 
heartily disposed to honor a departed statesman.' 

" One of the most peculiar things about Mr. Beecher's 
correspondence was its utter lack of sameness or formality. 
He addressed me in a half-dozen different styles, such as, 
4 My dear Mr. Bonner,' 'My dear Robert,' 'My dear 
Bonner,' and sometimes, when he wished to simulate 



262 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

anger at some fancied slight, simply ' Robert Bonner.' 
He invariably jumped into the subject that was upper- 
most in his mind, and after disposing of that would deal 
in timely gossip. Sometimes his changes from subject 
to subject were rather startling. At the end of a common- 
place letter on business topics, dated September 12, 1866, 
he writes : ' Was ever a man so killed dead by his own 
folly as Johnson ? A Vice-President seems of necessity 
to be struck with insanity on the death of his principle .' 

" You will observe that he has misspelled the word 
principal in this instance. That cannot be taken as a 
criterion, for he was usually very accurate in his spelling, 
but somewhat weak in his grammar. His copy for the 
printers was written closely in a small, almost effeminate 
hand, but was legible, and seldom required much editing. 
Occasionally one would run across a word that could not 
be deciphered, but it could generally be easily supplied 
from the context. One of the greatest difficulties we 
had to contend with in his literary work was his habit of 
procrastination. His love of out-door recreation was in- 
nate. He was always contented when he could be in the 
open air, but to sit at a desk and write was irksome, 
laborious, and not congenial to his nature. It was only 
through the constant teasing of his wife and the frequent 
demands from me that he could be induced to furnish 
his quota to the Ledger's columns, and sometimes we 
failed in keeping him at work. He seemed to have no 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 263 

realization of the value of money, seldom hesitating to 
purchase any object which suited his fancy whether he 
could afford it or not. His wife took charge of the 
family finances and kept his accounts, or otherwise he 
would have been obliged, as he once said in one of his 
letters, to ' have gone into bankruptcy and pay five cents 
on the dollar,' several times in his career." 

Following is a characteristic letter which Mr. Beecher 
once wrote to Mr. Bonner in answer to some questions 
from the Ledger s readers : 

" Dear Mr. Bonner : You put into my hands a 
batch of questions, with a hint that I need not answer 
them unless I please. I do please. Of course I do not 
expect to put an end to such stories — certainly not to 
these particular ones. The first story, in the following 
letter, I have contradicted, in public and private, scores 
of times ; and the only effect, as far as I can see, is that 
it moves on more vigorously than ever. But here is the 
letter : 

" ' Dear Ledger : Will you please inform me, through 
your answers to correspondents, if some of the stories I 
hear about Henry Ward Beecher are so or not ? I have 
heard that he preached the sermon about being so 
damned hot. I have heard, also, that when asked by 
another minister what the difference was in their re- 



264 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ligions, that Mr. Beecher answered that there was a hell- 
fired sight of difference, meaning that the other preached 
that doctrine while he did not. Also, that he is a 
great card-player, and that the slang phrase of " How is 
that for high ? " was started by him while playing a game 
of old sledge or seven-up. I don't know as you will 
like to answer these questions, but they will do a great 
deal of good to confirm his good character out here. I 
don't believe one word of it.' 

" No. 1 never began a sermon by saying " it is 

d d hot," nor with any variation of the phrase, nor 

in any manner remotely like it. Now, I appeal to a 
generous community whether it is fair to keep that story 
on me any longer, when there are others waiting for their 
turn — for somebody will have to carry it. There is 
Brother Talmage, he ought to carry it a while. Why 
not try it upon Hepworth ? Of course, such a saddle 
would hardly fit the broad back of the good Dr. John 
Hall ; but why should he not have something else as good 
made up for him ? 

" The second story is made up out of the whole cloth 
— so far as I am concerned. I suspect that it was Dr. 
Chapin said it. Try it on him ! 

" As to cards, I have never played a game of cards 
in my life. My education in that direction was entirely 
neglected. Indeed, if card-playing is necessary to lib- 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 265 

eral culture, I am in a deplorable state ; for I do not 
know one card from another. I am afraid that many 
men ' on the plains,' or in the mountains out West, will 
not think so well of me now ; but the truth must be 
told. History is inexorable. Our young friend (for the 
letter was sent hither by a Kansas boy) is at liberty to 
read on the house-tops my renunciation and denial of 
these fiery stories ; and, if he ever hears anything else 
bad about me, deny it, and stick to it, and ninety-nine 
times in a hundred, five times over, he will be right ! 
Now for the next : 

" ' In your answer to correspondents please inform me 
whether Rev. H. W. Beecher ever prepares and delivers 
a sermon or prayer. I claim he does, and that the last 
sermon he preached last July, before his vacation, was a 
written one. Am I right ? ' 

" All wrong. Wrong every time. He does not write 
out his sermons, or, as it is said, ' deliver it on paper • ' 
and the sermon of last July was not a written one. 
Mere outlines are made. Very brief briefs, as a lawyer 
would say. 

" I do not promise to answer all questions, or any 
more; but being in the mood I have let fly at these 
croaking birds, as one returning from a hunt would fire 
at a crow to clean out his gun-barrels. 

" Henry Ward Beecher." 



266 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Previous to purchasing his farm at Peekskill, where he 
spent many happy days, Mr. Beecher counselled with Mr. 
Bonner and Mr. Derby. After the three gentlemen had 
walked up and down the hills, Mr. Bonner caused the 
divine to laugh heartily by remarking that there was but 
one objection to the farm, and that was absence of level 
ground for a mile track. Mr. Beecher admired the high- 
bred horse, and one day he said to the owner of Dexter : 
" Robert Bonner, you are a very mean man." — " Why ? " 
— " How can you ask why, when you have never invited 
me up to your Tarrytown farm to see those fine horses 
you own." — " But I have never asked my own pastor, 
Dr. John Hall, to go up."— " What of that ? What does 
Dr. Hall know of the horse except what he has read in 
Revelations about the red horse and the white horse ? " 

A few years ago Mr. Beecher delivered the annual ad- 
dress before the graduating class of the American Veter- 
inary College. Chickering Hall was crowded with ladies 
and gentlemen, and the committee were on needles for a 
little while. The exercises were to commence at eight 
o'clock, and it was 8.30 when the orator walked in, with 
bent shoulders and a weary expression on his face. He 
had written out his address in full, and as he had been 
late in getting down to the task he was behind time. 
When he got before his audience his face brightened and 
the carefully prepared sentences were spoken with ani- 
mation. " Rank," he said, " is determined by the man 



HE WRITES FOR THE LEDGER. 267 

who practises, not by the thing he practises on. The 
aurist, the oculist, rank with neurologists. A man need 
not be an ass because he cares for horses." He argued 
that there was a great future before the veterinarian in 
this country. " If ever an animal deserved itself the title 
of faithful and true, it is the horse. Loving liberty, how 
kindly he submits to bondage. With ten times his 
strength, how docile is he to his driver. How willing to 
learn, how anxious to please, how utterly he gives up 
his own life to serve the wants of others. In speed like 
an eagle ; in strength, a lion ; in gentleness, a lamb." 
Mr. Beecher delighted in nature, and had he not entered 
the pulpit he probably would have become a closer stu- 
dent of the breeding problem. As it was, he had a better 
knowledge of the qualities of the road-horse than any 
other man of his cloth. 



CHAPTER XII. 

HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 

" Norwood ; or, Life North and South." — Its Plot and Object. — Norwood 
and its Population. — Abiah Cathcart and his Peculiarities. — Rachel 
Liscomb. — A Love-making Scene. — How the Momentous Question 
was Asked. — The Country Doctor. — The Bachelor Uncle. — What 
constitutes a Gentleman. — Mr. Beecher's Views regarding Will- 
Power. — Doctoring through the Imagination. — Rose and Alice. — 
Negro Pete. — Polly Marble on getting Religion. — Tom Hey wood's 
Letter. — The Battle of Gettysburg. — A Monument to Surgeons and 
Hospital Nurses. — Marriage Bells. 

In the preceding chapter we have learned the circum- 
stances under which " Norwood "was written. We will 
now take a brief survey of that famous novel. 

In the preface, Mr. Beecher informs his readers that it 
was written for the New York Ledger at the request of 
its editor. He had been but a moderate reader of fiction, 
and the work of writing a story seems at first to have been 
dreaded by him ; but he reflected that any real human ex- 
perience was intrinsically interesting, and that the life of 
a humble family even for a single day could hardly fail 
to win some interest. As the author says, " The habit of 
looking upon men, or the children of God and heirs of 
immortality, can hardly fail to clothe the simplest and 
most common elements of daily life with importance, and 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 269 

even with dignity. Nothing is trivial in the education 
of the King's Son ! " Here spoke the whole-souled, gener- 
ous heart of the man who could find nobility in all things 
created. This feeling permeates his story of Village Life 
in New England. 

Beginning with a brief description of the picturesque 
beauty of the villages of New England in general, and in 
particular of Norwood, a town of five thousand inhabi- 
tants, which had, " in a general and indistinct way, an 
upper, middle, and lower class, with a wholesome jealousy 
of their rights, and a suspicion among the poor that 
wealth and strength always breed danger to the weak, 
making the upper class politically weaker than any other," 
we are introduced to Abiah Cathcart and Rachel Liscomb. 
Abiah Cathcart is a finely drawn specimen of a New Eng- 
land farmer, who had to begin life with a healthy body 
and mind and a common-school education. With the aid 
of these, by diligent perseverance and hard work the sturdy 
New Englander carved out his own fortune ; and " who 
shall blame his honest pride afterward, when he was 
wealthy, that he had created his own fortune ? Wealth 
created without spot or blemish is an honest man's peer- 
age ; and to be proud of it is his right. It is not the 
empty pride of money, but pride of skill, of patience, of 
labor, of perseverance, and of honor, which wrought and 
secured the wealth." 

Rachel Liscomb, the daughter of a farmer and a dea- 



27O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

con, was " one of the few women without gifts of speech 
whose bearing and looks are a full equivalent for speech," 
and from her early training was peculiarly adapted to be 
the companion and helpmate of Abiah in his journey 
through life. A silent understanding has existed between 
them that they are intended for each other, but it is not 
till awakened and encouraged by the text of a sermon 
that Abiah finds the courage to make the understanding 
more complete. " How strangely his voice sounded to 
him as, at length, all his emotions could only say, * Rachel, 
how did you like the sermon ? ' Quietly, she answered, 
' I liked the text.' — ' A new commandment I write unto 
you, that ye love one another. Rachel, will you help me 
keep it ? ' At first she looked down and lost a little color ; 
then raising her face, she turned upon him her large eyes, 
with a look both clear and tender. It was as if some 
painful restraint had given way, and her eyes blossomed 
into full beauty. Not another word was spoken. They 
walked home hand-in-hand. He neither smiled nor ex- 
ulted. He saw neither the trees nor the long level rays 
of sunlight that were slanting across the fields. His soul 
was overshadowed with a cloud as if God were drawing 
near. He had never felt so solemn. This woman's life 
had been intrusted to him ! Long years — the whole 
length of life — the eternal years beyond, seemed in an in- 
distinct way to rise up in his imagination. All that he 
could say as he left her was : 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 27 1 

" Rachel, this is forever — forever ! " 

No effusion and protestations of undying affection, no 
fervent words of love. Their hearts speak for them, and 
both are satisfied. " Outwardly, and in consonance with 
the customs of the neighborhood, he was gay and jovial 
at the wedding ; but down deep in his soul he was as 
solemn before Rachel as if God spoke and he listened." 
And then the author continues : 

" How wondrous are the early days of wedlock, in 
young and noble souls ! How strange are the ways of 
two pure souls wholly finding each other out ; between 
whom for days and months is going on that silent and 
unconscious intersphering of thought, feeling, taste, and 
will by which two natures are clasping and twining and 
growing into each other ! Happy are they who know, and 
well Cathcart knew, how to bring such wisdom with lov- 
ing, that selfishness, a poisonous weed, shall die out ; and 
love clothed with reverence shall grow and thrive with 
power and beauty all one's life ! For, if there be one root 
in which resides the secret of producing immortal flowers, 
it is Love." 

From such a marriage only happiness could result, and 
as years rolled on Cathcart grew to prosperity and into 
universal respect, and erelong we are introduced to two 
of his children, Barton and Alice, who come more prom- 
inently forward as they advance to young manhood and 
womanhood. 



2/2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Dr. Reuben Wentworth is the next prominent charac- 
ter in " Norwood." By the favor of his uncle, in his youth 
he had passed through Harvard University, and then 
had come the trouble of deciding with his uncle the call- 
ing he should adopt. Uncle Ebenezer was an old bach- 
elor, spry, lean, and " chipper," but at heart a stern moral- 
ist, and loyal to the last degree in his conduct to honor 
and truth. 

" Well, Reuben," he said to his nephew, " you are 
pretty well stuffed with trash. It will take several years 
to forget what you ought not to have learned, and to get 
rid of the evil effects of foolish instruction. But that 
will come pretty much of itself. College learning is very 
much like snow, and the more a man has of it the less 
can the soil produce. It's not till practical life melts it 
that the ground yields anything. Men get over it quicker 
in some kinds of business than in others. The college 
sticks longest on ministers and school-masters ; next, to 
lawyers, not much to doctors, and none at all to mer- 
chants and gentlemen. You can't afford to be a gentle- 
man, and so you must choose among other callings." 

" Can't a man, Uncle Eb, be a gentleman in any re- 
spectable calling ? " 

" Oh, dear, no. My gentleman must take all his time 
to it, spend his life at it, be jealous of everything else. 
He is a kind of perfect man, a sort of chronometer for 
other men to keep time by. One is enough for a whole 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 273 

town. One is enough — two would be a superfluity, and 
a class of them simply a nuisance. A gentleman should 
have feeling — but should hide it. People of much senti- 
ment are like fountains, whose overflow keeps a disagree- 
able puddle about them. He should have knowledge, 
but not like your educated men of our day, whose knowl- 
edge sings, and crows, and cackles with every achieve- 
ment. His knowledge should be like apples in autumn, 
hanging silently on the boughs — rich, ripe, and still. A 
gentleman should be business-like by instinct. Affairs in 
his hands come to pass silently and without ado, as 
Nature compasses her results — the vastest range and 
round of spring work making less noise than one store 
or shop. I tell you, Reuben, a gentleman is a rare speci- 
men. He requires so much in the making that few are 
made. . . . He must be so fine that he accomplishes 
more while doing nothing than others do with all their 
bustle. He must be better than other men at the start, 
or he will grow rough in trying to mend matters, and so 
be like the best of common men, who only succeed in 
getting ready to live when it is time for them to die." 

There was a world of practical common-sense in old 
Uncle Eb, in spite of his crotchety ways and love of ar- 
gument. What a pity it is that he died a bachelor, and 
that he has left unrecorded his appreciation of the term 
— so provocative of argument and disagreement — a lady. 

The outcome of Reuben's consultation with his uncle 
12 



274 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

was that he became a doctor ; and at Uncle Eb's death 
he inherited a comfortable income and settled down at 
Norwood, and soon found his professional services in 
great demand. 

" His skill consisted in persuading men to get well. 
Sickness is very largely the want of will. Everything is 
brain. There is thought and feeling, not only, but will ; 
and will includes in it far more than mental philosophers 
think. It acts universally, now as upon mind, and 
then just as much upon the body. It is another name 
for life-force. Men in whom this life or will-power is 
great resist disease and combat it when attacked. To 
array a man's mind and will against his sickness is the 
supreme art of medicine. Inspire in men courage and 
purpose, and the mind-power will cast out disease. He 
was himself the best medicine, and often cured by his 
presence those whom drugs would have scarcely helped. 
These cures through the spirit of the patient he regarded 
as far the most skilful and philosophical. . . . ' Only 
the imagination ? ' he said to a nurse. * That is enough. 
Better suffer in bone and muscle than in the imagina- 
tion. If the body is sick, the mind can cure it ; but if 
the mind itself is sick, what shall cure that ? ' ' 

The doctor prospered. Had he been a poor man his 
character would in time have brought him employment ; 
as he was independent of his profession, his services were 
sought by all, and " he furnished another instance of the 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 275 

willingness of men to aid those not in need, while those 
who are likely to starve if not at once befriended are put 
on a long probation." 

For a house-keeper the doctor possessed a model in 
Agate Bissell, remarkable for her energy and conscien- 
tious fidelity, a very despot in her treatment of dirt and 
disorder, and, notwithstanding her hard manner and in- 
flexible precision, possessed of a depth of affection ready 
to be bestowed on all worthy objects. 

The village is interested in Dr. Wentworth's bachelor- 
dom, becomes excited over his marriage, and criticises his 
wife, before she is received and loved as the doctor him- 
self. Then little Rose Wentworth is born, and the event 
gives an opportunity to Uncle Tommy Taft, the village 
cooper, philanthropist, and character, whose wife is re- 
garded as second only in importance to the doctor on 
these occasions, to make himself known to the reader, 
and mildly exasperating to Parson Buell and Agate Bis- 
sell, the latter, in spite of the doctor's marriage, still 
reigning supreme in the household. . 

While Barton and Alice Cathcart and Rose Went- 
worth are growing up, the latter being carefully guarded 
during many a mad open-air frolic by an honest, burly 
negro named Pete, many of the prominent villagers pass 
before our notice ; and we are regaled with many natural 
delights in flower-garden and forest, sunshine and shower. 

There is big Deacon Jerry Marble, full of fun and ner- 



276 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

vous risibility, whether in church or out of it, brimful of 
good-nature and light-heartedness. As an antidote, he 
has his wife, Polly — all nerve, bone, and skin — "so thin 
that smiles slipped off her head easily and left the same 
anxious, earnest face." Good hearts both, though of 
opposite temperaments. 

Then appears good-natured, jovial, heavy-weighted 
Deacon Trowbridge, between whom and Deacon Marble 
Hiram Beers, the practical joker and wit of the village, 
gets up a climbing contest at a nutting party, to the 
great amusement of everybody but Polly Marble, whose 
horror at her spouse's undignified position in the tree-top 
was not to be silenced. 

A night fishing scene, in which 'Biah Cathcart, Barton, 
Alice, Rose, and Pete take part is enthusiastically de- 
scribed, the description being in no way dampened, or 
the sport spoiled, either by Hiram Beers' banter or the 
thunder-storm which winds up the night's frolic. All 
are children of Nature, and remain unharmed, although 
Rachel Cathcart's fears are excited on seeing the drenched 
condition of the fishing party on their return home. 

"'Oh, father! ' said Rachel, ' it is wild of you to have 
these children out on such a night ! Come in, my dar- 
lings ! ' But Rose and Alice were evidently too much 
excited and happy to need pity. 

" ' Why, Rachel, do you suppose people catch cold when 
they are excited like these children ? ' 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 277 

" ' But what would Dr. Wentworth say ? ' 
" ' Say ? Why, he would say that such an experience 
was better than a dozen volumes of books — that it would 
give life to the imagination, that it would give the children 
impressions which would enlarge their whole after-life — 
that's what he would say ! — and if he had been along him- 
self, he would have enjoyed it better than any of us. . . . 
I hope never to get over being young. I look back on 
this night as if I had been walking in a cave full of 
crystals. I shall never forget it, and I'll warrant the chil- 
dren never will. Such things clean off the drudgery and 
sameness of life, and reach toward a deeper meaning.' " 
Speaking of Rose and Alice, the author says : 
Is there in life a fairer sight than two maidens, just 
emerging from childhood, twined together in love, gentle, 
strong, sincere, and full of fancies ? who see real things as 
if they were visions and imaginary things as if they were 
real ? whose days and nights flow musical as a meadow- 
brook, between green banks, and over a bottom rough, 
just enough to give flash and ripple to the surface ? All 
the simplicity of childhood is yet theirs, while dawning 
duties and social proprieties begin to jut out like the 
buds in early spring ! How beautiful the contrast be- 
tween Alice, sensitive, reserved, and full of innate dignity 
— whose cheek changed color to her feelings, shifting al- 
most as the colors flash from a humming-bird's back as 
he quivers among flowers — and Rose, fair-skinned, of a 



2/8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

brown hair that might be called suppressed auburn — free, 
frank, strong, and loving — who seemed conscious of the 
life and meaning of every living thing except herself. 
She had that perfect health which produces unconscious- 
ness of self. Alice accepted mirth, but never created it. 
Rose sparkled with it. Her thoughts moved in a brill- 
iant atmosphere. In certain of her moods, events, peo- 
ple, and even soulless objects, sparkled with gayety and 
humor. The two girls might be called, in the language 
of art, Light and Shadow. 

Dr. Wentworth delighted to narrate to the children 
fables of Nature — " fictions that under every form what- 
soever still tended in their imagination to bring Nature 
home to them as God's wonderful revelation, vital with 
sentiment and divine truth." 

Rose's love of Nature seemed at times to be a great 
cause of anxiety to her mother and Agate Bissell. 
" There are many people who seem to regard anxiety as 
a religious duty. They seem to think that no state of 
mind is substantial which is not ballasted with cares." 
In conversation with Mrs. Polly Marble, Agate asked if 
the Lord in his Sovereignty might not deal gently with 
young people. Was not that the meaning of the Scrip- 
ture, " He will carry the young in His arms ? " 

"Agate," said Polly, "I always say that it's best to be 
on the sure side. It never does harm to find fault with 
your evidences, 'cause if they are real you won't hurt 'em, 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 2/9 

and if they are deceivin' you, you will be apt to find it 
out. People nowadays git religion too easy. I was un- 
der conviction nigh about two months. I was awfully 
striven with afore I give up. Young people now seem to 
git along too easy, I say. They don't bear any yoke, nor 
carry much of a cross. I have seen folks have measles 
light, and scarlet fever so easy they didn't hardly know 
it. But I shall never be made to believe that anybody 
took religion so easy that they didn't know they had it." 

" Don't you sometimes doubt the promises," said Agate, 
" when you see how children turn out that's well brought 
up ? ... I don't know — it's a mystery to me ! " 

" A mystery ! " said Aunt Polly Marble, . . . 
" there is no mystery about it. It's all election. That 
does it ! " And that was Mrs. Marble's solution of many 
a difficulty. 

Barton Cathcart, meanwhile, is growing apace, men- 
tally and physically, and after the exercise of a great 
deal of self-help in the acquirement of elementary knowl- 
edge, he at length, with the consent of his father, enters 
Amherst College. Before this, however, it has become 
apparent to both Rose and himself that something 
stronger than their childhood's affection for each other 
is coming to the surface. The author treats his readers 
to a chapter on Mental Philosophy dealing with the 
transitions of feelings from boyhood and girlhood to 
manhood and womanhood ; and after three years we are 



2So LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

introduced to visitors at Norwood. There is Frank 
Esel, a young artist with plenty of money and a rare 
facility for spending, who had made a reputation for 
himself in Norwood by stopping Rose Wentworth's run- 
away horse and saving her life, and soon afterward makes 
the discovery that he is a fourth cousin to the Went- 
worths, and falls in love with Rose. Also Tom Hey- 
wood, from Virginia, comes before our notice, and it is 
not long before Barton Cathcart's heart begins to be 
troubled and to throb with uneasiness in view of the feel- 
ings which it is evident this gentleman entertains toward 
Rose. Barton has graduated from Amherst with suc- 
cess, and he is now in charge of the Norwood Academy. 

An extract from one of Tom Heywood's letters to his 
brother Hal is interesting as a Southerner's comparison 
between North and South, based on his own experiences. 

"I am studying," he writes, "this Yankee people with 
the utmost zest. Of course, many of them are like our 
own folks. Cultivated people are always more or less 
alike, the world over. On that very account one studies 
the middle and lower classes for distinctive characters, as 
there, if anywhere, is apt to be found originality and ec- 
centricity. I had an impression that the rigor of Puritan 
morals, and a coercive public sentiment, held everything 
here down to set patterns, and that I should find a 
dreary sameness of a kind not very interesting. But the 
under people here are rich in peculiarities. They open 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 28 1 

up well already. In the South there is more liberty of 
actio?i, and in the North of thought. Law is not so 
strong among us. A population thinly scattered through 
wide territory are obliged to take their affairs into their 
own hands, and are less likely to wait for redress or op- 
portunity for the slow process of law. Men here live in 
attrition, yet universally respect the law. Among the 
lower classes Law is put instead of Religion. Yesterday 
a man had been aggrieved by a neighbor. I heard him 
say, in a great passion, ' I'll have the law of him if there's 
any justice in the land.' Had it been in Virginia, the 
man would have thrashed the offender on the spot, and 
settled his grievance without judge or jury.'' 

Rose saves Esel the pain of a refusal by desiring him 
to continue a friend, but Heywood probably had to in- 
cur the pain which had been spared to Esel. Then from 
the peaceful village scenes we are carried into the war. 
"The leading thoughtful political men of South Caro- 
lina . . . were fully determined at all hazards to 
separate from the North." Heywood, though deploring 
the contest, hurries off to take his place on the Southern 
side. The assault and evacuation of Fort Sumter takes 
place, and war is definitely declared. Norwood re- 
sponds nobly, and Barton Cathcart leads his company 
to add to the ranks of the North. Agate Bissell, with 
Rose and Alice, later take the field as nurses, the young 

girls being interested in both sides of the fight. Alice, 
12* 



282 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

while praying for the safety of her brother, is obliged 
also to include Hey wood, on whom she has secretly be- 
stowed all her young affections, while Rose is equally 
anxious for Barton, though by a misunderstanding he 
has not yet openly declared himself. 

An interesting description of the fight at Gettysburg 
follows, in which fight poor Tom Heywood, who had 
hated the war, but was forced into it, is killed. His 
body is discovered by Alice, and interred. Then, in spite 
of the grief at her heart and the hope that is gone, to re- 
turn no more, she goes back to her hospital duties and 
tender care of the sick and wounded. 

" It seems fit that among the testimonies of a nation's 
gratitude some recognition should be given to this rear- 
guard of humanity. At least it would be a wise and 
comely act for the Government of this Nation, in the 
Capital, to rear a monument and inscribe it — 

TO 
The Heroic Surgeons and the Noble Women 

who 
Laid down their lives for the Nation. 

Barton, who is now General Cathcart, is taken pris- 
oner, and is rescued by Pete, the negro, and conveyed to 
the house of a Quaker farmer, and carefully tended, and 
where Rose and her father are erelong in attendance on 



HIS FIRST AND ONLY NOVEL. 283 

him. On his return to consciousness Barton and Rose 
are soon of one accord on the important question be- 
tween them, and the long weeks of his recovery are 
shortened by the joys of love. 

After two years. The war is over, and we are back in 
Norwood to witness the ceremony that is to unite for 
evermore these two young loving hearts. And then the 
sudden decease of Agate Bissell astounds the neighbors. 
For scarcely are Rose and Barton united than Agate 
* bravely takes her stand and becomes Mrs. Parson Buell. 
"Only Alice's presence was wanting to make the day 
perfectly happy." 

" Alice," said her mother, " is very heart-sore. Life 
goes wearily with her. But she has determined to give 
her life to the instruction of the poor black children. 
She has gone to Lynchburg, where his parents lived, you 
know, and I hope she is happier now." 

" But the people are dispersing. The sun is just set- 
ting. Some linger, and seem reluctant to leave. If you, 
too, reader, linger and feel reluctant to leave "Norwood," 
I shall be rejoiced and repaid for the long way over which 
I have led you." 

The wish of the author has been attained. When one 
has read " Norwood," he wishes to return to it, and the 
oftener he returns the more charms he will find in the 
peaceful scenes and communings with Nature so beauti- 
fully delineated. 



CHAPTER XIII. 

HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 

The Greatest Orator of the Century. — Characteristics of His Oratory. — Ex- 
temporizing a Sermon. — A Reporter's Experience. — Power with an 
Audience. — His Great Earnestness. — Thoughts Rarely committed to 
Paper.- — Doctrinal Addresses. — Peculiarities of His Lectures. — Never 
the Same Successively. — Weakness in Statistical Matters. — His Mi- 
metic Skill. — His Last Public Address. — Congregational Singing. — 
Eloquence of His Prayers. — Always dealt with Questions of the Time. 
— Where Materials were Obtained. — A Curious Autograph. — His 
Great Lecture Tour in the West. — The New York Independent on 
Beecher. 

It is not too much to say that Mr. Beecher was the 
greatest orator that the century has produced. Others 
may have equalled him in fluency of speech, in earnest- 
ness of manner/or in other requisites of eloquence, but 
no man has equalled him in great range of thought, in the 
variety of topics considered, and above all in the ability 
to speak with swiftly flowing eloquence upon a subject 
which had been presented but a few moments before he 
rose to his feet. The following anecdote is an illustra- 
tion of his wonderful power in this direction. 

One of the reporters of the Brooklyn Eagle was sent 
one Sunday evening a few years ago to report Mr. 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 285 

Beecher's sermon. The discourse was one of singular 
power, freshness, and force, and the reporter was more than 
charmed and interested. When the service was over he 
encountered Mr. Beecher at the foot of the pulpit stairs, 
and knowing the small store he set upon his manuscript 
notes, asked him if he would be good enough to give 
them to him, as he desired to preserve them as an auto- 
graphical prize and as a memento of the sermon. " Well," 
said the Plymouth Church pastor, as he fluttered over the 
half-dozen sheets of note-paper, "you can have them, but 
this is not the sermon I preached. I prepared this sermon 
intending to use it ; but when I got in the pulpit I got 
to thinking of another subject and preached upon that." 
He gave the reporter the notes, however, very willingly, 
seeming to care nothing for them, so the young man has 
the notes of one of Mr. Beecher's unpreached sermons. 

The following is a careful analysis of Mr. Beecher's art 
as an orator by one who had studied him carefully : 

For more than half a century he spoke in public. His 
addresses were on diverse subjects — political, religious, 
educational, agricultural, charitable, and other. He was 
gifted with a massive frame, a fine presence, a powerful 
and well-modulated voice, and an impressive demeanor. 
Whatever he said bore the mark of earnestness. He threw 
himself into a subject impulsively. His diction was some- 
thing marvellous. Although he never spoke from manu- 
script, and in his most polished addresses relied only on 



286 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

the briefest of captions, he was never at a loss for a word, 
never failed to get the most apt expression. 

He had above most orators the power to sway an audi- 
ence as he saw fit. He could touch and arouse, could 
move to tears and inspire to enthusiasm. In his lighter 
and more genial mood he would bring out smiles and 
bursts of most hearty laughter. His quaint conceits 
would often appear in his pulpit utterances, and on such 
occasions his enemies accused him of buffoonery solely 
because of some garbled extracts which found their way 
into print. Read, however, with the context as they 
were uttered, their true meaning and purpose were at once 
perceived. He dealt less in imagery or word-painting 
than in illustration and analogy, and rarely indulged in 
quotations. His appeals were to human feeling no less 
than to human reason. 

Ordinarily he spoke slowly and with deliberation, but 
he would now and again indulge in passionate outbursts 
in which the words came like a torrent. Stenographers 
and other reporters of his addresses never felt quite sure 
of him. He would proceed for some minutes at the rate 
of about one hundred and twenty words a minute, and 
then would suddenly rise to double that speed. The re- 
porters, however, had one compensation — Mr. Beecher 
never found fault with their reports. 

Nearly all of his addresses were extemporary, in the 
sense that he had little or no notes to guide him. In his 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 287 

ordinary addresses, where he was one of several speakers 
at a meeting or assemblage, he would listen to those who 
preceded him, and taking as a text some one utterance, 
would construct an address upon that. He had, to a 
very marked degree, the ability to " think upon his feet," 
and as a consequence was not ruffled by interruptions. 
In fact, he often did better after being interrupted than 
before. An outside remark would spur him on, and he 
would often use it to the discomfiture of the person utter- 
ing it. Most effective instances of this were had from 
time to time in Plymouth Church itself. 

He prided himself on having made the pulpit of his 
church a free platform. From it spoke the heroes of the 
old anti-slavery fight, with Wendell Phillips in the van. 
There it was that they raised money to buy the liberty 
of slaves. It re-echoed with a welcome to Kossuth, and 
with appeals for the oppressed abroad and at home. 
From it came urgent calls for charity, for education, for 
freedom, and for humanity. No good cause ever found 
Mr. Beecher remiss. His heart, his purse, and his voice 
responded in no uncertain or half-hearted way. 

His doctrinal addresses, including his famous Vale lect- 
ures, were gems in their way. The thought was couched 
in vigorous language, the illustrations were most varied, 
and the logical sequence was perfect. He could dress an 
idea in most intelligible as well as striking garb, and his 
comparisons were fitting as well as admirable. 



2&8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRV WARD BEECHER. 

He was in great demand as a lecturer all over the 
country, and was always sure of a large and attentive au- 
dience. People would go to hear him deliver the same 
lecture again and again. But it was never the same lect- 
ure. The topic was the same, but the language, the 
illustrations, and the method of reasoning were different. 
He never committed a lecture to memory, but relied on 
the inspiration of the moment to guide him in his man- 
ner of viewing or discussing his subject. The lecture 
would not be the same on two successive evenings. He 
kept abreast of the times, took a lively interest in current 
topics, and would weave in his discourse illustrations or 
incidents suggested by the occurrences of the day. 

It was on festive occasions that his geniality in dis- 
course found full vent. At public dinners, notably those 
of the New England Society in New York for many years, 
he was looked upon as the especial guest. He would at 
one moment set the tables in a roar, and next moment 
would thrill them to the quick by an appeal to their sym- 
pathy. It was a tribute to his ability that the dinner com- 
mittee generally managed so that Mr. Beecher was the 
last speaker. Everyone waited to the end in order to hear 
him speak. Presidents, governors, and political magnates 
would precede him, but his advent would be anxiously 
waited for. He had no set speech for such occasions. At 
one time the burden of his talk would be good-natured 
raillery; at another it would be some earnest plea for 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 289 

progress or for charity. Whatever it was, it was well said 
and well received. 

In his political addresses, Mr. Beecher rarely ventured 
on the domain of statistics, although when he did so he 
showed great art in his handling of figures. His appeals 
were usually to the feelings and the consciences of his 
auditors. He spoke in every Presidential campaign, and 
in many of the minor contests, among them that for muni- 
cipal reform in his own city. In recent years his most 
noted addresses of the kind were the memorable one in 
the Garfield campaign, in which he fairly flayed by his 
sarcasm the brood of calumniators whose argument con- 
sisted in chalking the figures 329 on pavements and cellar 
doors; that in the Cooper Union, wherein he urged the 
renomination of President Arthur, and his Brooklyn 
Rink speech in favor of Cleveland. 

Mr. Beecher had no fixed formula for beginning an 
address. He would sometimes open up his subject with 
his conclusion, and gradually show the train of reasoning 
leading to it. At other times he would begin by an- 
nouncing certain undisputed facts, and lead by easy 
stages to the result. He bound himself by no set rules, 
and he followed none. He used few gestures. 

His play of feature and his mimetic skill were so re- 
markable that it was often said of him that he would 
have been a wonderful actor had he chosen that calling. 
He felt too strongly what he said, however, to have sim- 



290 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ulated a passion. When he pleaded for a cause he did so 
with his whole being. His voice would grow husky, his 
frame would tremble, and tears would follow one another 
down his cheeks. His audiences, listening with rapt at- 
tention, would feel as he did, and be drawn the closer 
toward him. His spell was magnetic. 

Another writer says : 

His last public address was delivered, within the week 
in which he was stricken, in favor of the high license bill. 
He was " a temperance man ; " he had been generally " a 
total abstinent ; " but he saw with the general intelligent 
opinion of the community that the cause of temperance 
here and now could be best served by high license. This 
was a striking illustration of his good-sense and of that 
ready sympathy which was generally in accord with the 
best opinion around him. Indeed, the average good-sense, 
the humane impulse, the moral sentiment of the country, 
found its voice in him. His national pride was stirred 
by the consciousness that the American republic was " the 
reign of the common people." The people heard him 
gladly, because he was a sturdy, strong, inspiring preacher, 
not of theological doctrines, but of righteousness of life. 

When he took charge of Plymouth Church, the first 
thing he insisted on was congregational singing. The 
organ was not a very fine instrument, but it did its duty, 
and a large volunteer choir led the singing — at first, but 
after a while the congregation was the choir and the organ 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 291 

the leader. Mr. Beecher had the pulpit cut away, and 
on the platform placed a reading-desk. In this way he 
was plainly visible from crown to toe, and whether preach- 
ing or sitting, every motion was in full view of the crowded 
assemblage. Instead of resting a pale forehead on a pallid 
hand and closing his eyes as if in silent prayer while his 
people sung, Mr. Beecher held his book in his red fist 
and sung with all his might. Although not a finished 
singer, he had a melodious bass voice, and he sung with 
understanding. As he did so his eyes would take in the 
scene before him, and it needed no wizard's skill to de- 
tect its power over him. Ever impressible and as full of 
intuition as a woman, he felt the presence of men and 
women. Time and again the tenor of his discourse was 
altered at the sight of a face. Incidents of the moment 
often shaped the discourse of the hour. He laid great 
stress on the influence of congregational singing. It 
brought the audience to a common feeling. It made 
them appreciate that they were not only in the house of 
worship, but that they were there as worshippers, part of 
their duty being to sing praises to the Most High. 

His prayers, too, attracted great attention. The keen- 
est eye, the most sensitive ear, never detected an approach 
to irreverence in Mr. Beecher's manner in prayer. He 
prayed, it is true, as a respectful son would petition a 
loving and indulgent father. It was noticed that he 
addressed his prayers very largely to the Saviour. In 



292 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

his sermons it was the love of Christ on which he dwelt. 
It seemed as if he delighted to put away all thought of 
the Judge, and to keep always present the tenderness of 
the Father and the affection of the Elder Brother. The 
little church was always overcrowded. Hundreds ap- 
plied in vain for seats. It became the fashion to " go to 
hear Beecher." Thousands went to criticise and ridicule. 
Thousands went in simple curiosity. It was soon the 
affectation to look down upon him. He was called boor- 
ish, illiterate, ungrammatical, uncultivated, fit for the 
common people only, and a temporary rush-light. Dr. 
Cox, an old friend of Lyman Beecher, to whom the 
new-comer expected to turn for advice as to a father, 
said : " I will give that young man six months in which 
to run out." When the church was burned the trustees 
put up an immense temporary structure on Pierrepont 
Street, near Fulton, which they called the Tabernacle. 
There every Sunday immense crowds of strangers and 
visitors from other parishes assembled to listen to Mr. 
Beecher. 

Already the newspapers had discovered the pith of the 
preacher and made him noted in the land. His utter- 
ances were never commonplace, his manner was always 
fresh, his illustrations ever new. He never avoided is- 
sues. Indeed, it was charged that he was sensational be- 
cause he talked and taught about the topic of the hour. 
He rarely preached a doctrinal sermon, and when he did 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 293 

there was a kind of explanatory protest with it, as much 
as to say : " I don't really believe I know anything about 
this, but it can't do any harm." At first he dealt largely 
in practical lessons to the young men who formed a large 
part of his congregations. It was often remarked that 
while the proportion in other churches was five women 
to one man, in the Tabernacle, and later in the Plymouth 
Church, the proportion was reversed. This is accounted 
for by two facts — young men, clerks, students, and those 
who lived in boarding-houses, felt at home in that church, 
and the hotels of New York sent over hundreds every 
Sunday, who considered hearing " Beecher preach " one 
of the essentials of their business in New York. At all 
events, there they were, and Mr. Beecher made it a rule 
of his life-work to address himself to them. He never 
bombarded the Jews, he left the heathen to their normal 
guardians, he avoided a decision of questions raised in the 
Garden of Eden, and left the sheep and the goats of an- 
cient history to follow the call of their shepherd. His 
flock was before him. His duty was to care for the men 
and women who sat in the pews of his church and thronged 
its aisles and packed its galleries. He was human, and 
avowed his love for man. Their weaknesses were his, and 
he called on them to seek a common physician. 

The average person who came to New York for the 
first time, no matter what might be his religion (if he had 
any), would no more think of returning home without 



294 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

hearing Mr. Beecher than he would neglect seeing Cen- 
tral Park or the Statue of Liberty. Men who had not 
been to church since their boyhood went to hear the 
great preacher. 

" I have known visitors to spend Saturday night in 
gambling hells and other wicked places," said an hotel 
clerk in New York, while speaking of this matter, " and 
then sit up for hours, so as to be sure to be in time to hear 
Mr. Beecher. At first it used to strike me as very odd 
to hear a man whom I knew to be a sport, and who held 
religion in contempt, talking about going to church. And 
they seemed to take such interest in it, too, and were so 
particular about being called in time. When they re- 
turned they talked about the sermon in such a way that 
I could see that Mr. Beecher had touched a tender spot 
in these hard hearts. 1 remember that this was the case 
a few years ago with Mike McDonald, the famous Chicago 
gambler. He had been out all night, and got in a little 
before daylight. He remarked that he had a great desire 
to hear Mr. Beecher, and he had made up his mind to do 
so that day; but he knew that if he should go to bed it 
would be hard work getting up. For that reason he sat 
up and opened several bottles of champagne as a means 
of killing time. I have no doubt but in this way Mr. 
Beecher reached a number of such sinners, many of whom 
he brought to a realization of their moral condition. I 
knew another instance where a man, while seeing New 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 295 

York one Saturday night by gas-light, got very much in- 
toxicated. He remembered that he had made up his 
mind to hear Mr. Beecher. He stopped drinking about 
midnight, so that he might sober up and attend Plymouth 
Church next morning. Had it not been for this, there's 
no telling to what excesses the man might have gone." 

General Horatio C. King of Brooklyn has in his col- 
lection of autographs an interesting scrap from Mr. 
Beecher's pen illustrating his manner of work. To it is 
attached a ticket to the platform of the Academy of 
Music, Brooklyn, on the occasion of the address of Mr. 
Beecher on " The Issues of the Canvass," Friday evening, 
October 9, 1868. The scrap of writing contains the head- 
ings made by Mr. Beecher for his address. They are 
written in a bold hand, apparently with a quill pen, and 
many of the words are underscored. The headings are 
as follows : I. — Origin of party — historic logic of our 
history and principles. II. — What has it done to de- 
serve well of the people ? III. — What charges are brought 
against it ? (1) — Not restoring the Union — delaying for 
party reasons. (2) — Oppressive taxes. (3) — It is refresh- 
ing to hear Mayor Hoffman express his conscience on ex- 
travagance in public moneys. IV. — By whom are they 
accused ? Who is it that proposes to take their place and 
finish the work of Liberty ? (1) — Their relation to every 
event and step gained by war. (2) — Their proposed 
remedy. Overturn all that Congress has done. Reverse 



296 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

legislation. Throw down State enactments. Send back 
Senators and Representatives. Remand Southern States 
to turmoil and confusion. 

Upon the platform Mr. Beecher, with these few notes, 
under the inspiration of the moment, delivered a splendid 
address, talking two hours or more. 

His greatest lecture tour was through the West in the 
winter and spring of 1877. He was absent about two 
months, speaking in many of the leading cities of that 
section of the country. His trip was a tremendous ova- 
tion. The size of the audiences was measured by the ca- 
pacity of the halls in which he spoke. Instances were 
frequent of people travelling hundreds of miles to hear 
him lecture. During the trip he spoke at least once a day, 
and often three times. While in the city where he lect- 
ured, he would visit some public institution, and would 
be called upon for a short speech. In spite of the tre- 
mendous strain of constant journeying and speaking he 
preserved his health and strength, and returned home ap- 
parently as fresh as the day he went away. It was with- 
out exception the most wonderful lecture tour ever wit- 
nessed in this country. 

An editorial in the New York Independent pays the 
following tribute to his oratory : 

In the death of Henry Ward Beecher the American pulpit loses 
one of the greatest men that ever stood in it, and perhaps the 
greatest genius that America has yet produced. 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 297 

There lies before us the picture of the young, dark-haired man 
who came to Brooklyn from Indianapolis more than forty years 
ago. We recall the fervor and brilliancy of his oratory. He shot 
suddenly into the sky, brilliant as a meteor, but with a light fixed 
and steady as the sun. Plymouth Church became immediately 
famous, the Mecca of every pilgrim. That young man had intro- 
duced a new style of preaching, had put a fresh genuineness into 
the Gospel, had discovered a manliness in religion ; and he uttered 
an appeal which went to every heart. For decade after decade 
there was no decay of his power. It is difficult to tell in what his 
power did or, rather, did not consist. It was in his whole nature. 
He was in every direction a genius. 

In the first place, he was a man of infinite common-sense. He 
looked all round things, and then he went to the centre of them. 
He said the plain, simple thing that everybody could understand. 
He was not deceived by the cant and conventionalities that sur- 
round a thought, an idea, a duty, or a religious service ; but he 
put his touch on the very core of things. He did not ask other 
men what was truth, but he looked for himself, and what he saw 
he told. It was always fresh, it was sometimes strange. Thus he 
had originality. He borrowed no judgments or opinions. He did 
not mind if he contradicted the world. He had that superb con- 
fidence that knew that his judgment might be worth more than the 
judgment of a million men. Because his head was higher than 
some other men's, his vision apparently was farther and truer than 
that of all the rest. So he spoke with authority that commanded 
assent. Not that every conclusion was true — that is not given to 
man ; but his conclusions carried almost more than mortal weight. 

Then there was his mighty enthusiasm. Enthusiasm is the chief 

qualification of a leader. It is not scholarship alone or sound 

judgment that makes progress or drives a captive world before it, 
13 



298 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

but enthusiasm. No other endowment is so important for a leader. 
Here is the magnetism we talk about. Mr. Beecher was overflow- 
ing with enthusiasm. What he knew or believed, he felt, and was 
determined that other people should feel it also. Here comes a 
good part of the courage which a leader has. Mr. Beecher had a 
leonine bravery. He was not afraid of man or the Devil. With what 
superb self-forge tfulness and might did he attack current notions 
which dishonored the character of God, or denounce the proud 
and apparently invincible monster of slavery ! How heroic was 
his defence of America before the mad mobs of England in the 
darkest hours of our civil war ! Not another man living did or 
could have done his service. And he did it all with such uncon- 
scious ease, with no apparent effort of logic, rhetoric, or oratory. 
What he said became evident when he said it, with no compulsion 
of argument and no illusion of eloquence. 

With this was joined the most exquisite poetic nature that ora- 
tor ever possessed. Every phase of nature was beautiful to him. 
Every trait in man was familiar to him. All this store of insight 
was part of the material of his thought. It was natural to him to 
speak in pictures. He never overlaid an argument with ornament. 
The ornament was in the argument. The two were fused together. 
The glory was in the gold. The spirit was in the wheels. 

It was worth crossing the ocean to hear him in his prime. Such 
a voice as he had ! It was sweet, mellow, most delicate and rich 
in its intonations, now moving steadily along a low level of tone, 
sinking into a tender pathos, bubbling over in some quick sally of 
mirth or humor, and then swelling out in a mighty volume of force 
that seemed to crash against the roof. Every sympathy and noble 
passion was appealed to — reason, laughter, tears answered him in 
turn, with an infinite variety of sentiment and feeling. It is not con- 
ceivable that he could ever have wearied a hearer. Every moment 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 299 

was fresher than the last. There was an utter absence of formality, 
not the least suspicion of art, the utter naturalness which naturally 
said noble things, beautiful things, even comical things — not to be 
comical, but to lighten the thought, and make the good seem more 
true. When he was speaking no one thought of the man, but only 
of the thing he said, and everyone went home to wonder at the 
power that could do such marvels with such infinite ease. As we 
look back upon him, it is that infinite ease with which he worked 
that carries the evidence of his genius — simply, he did what other 
men could not, because he was gifted with the power. 

His impress is on the country, in religious thought, in method of 
preaching, in all the social and political progress we have made. 
The country can never forget Henry Ward Beecher. It has not 
yet recorded a greater name. The generation is fortunate that has 
seen the method of such genius. We follow him to the grave with 
infinite admiration and unspeakable sorrow. Much has he said of 
the love and the mercy of God. To the mercy and love of God he 
has committed his soul, and our prayer follows his bier. 

Allusion has been made in a previous chapter to the 
successful effort of Mr. Beecher to raise money necessary 
to secure the freedom of a slave child. The occurrence 
was a fine illustration of the power of his oratory, and is 
admirably told by a biographer of Rose Terry Cooke. 
The writer says : 

" Miss Terry happened to attend Plymouth Church one 
morning when the pastor brought upon the platform a 
little colored child who was to be returned to slavery un- 
less a certain sum of money could be paid for her at once 
— Mr. Beecher undertaking to raise that money in his 



300 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

church and set the child free. As he told the story of 
her little life and wrongs, in his inimitable manner, every 
heart was harrowed, none more so than that of Rose, who 
was half wild with excitement, wrought to a fever of pity 
and horror ; and every purse flew open, and Rose had no 
purse about her. But on her hand — a white and tiny 
hand — was a ring she valued, a ring with a single fine opal 
in its setting — if it had been the Orloff diamond it would 
have made no difference, it was all she had when the box 
came round, and she took it off and dropped it in. It 
chanced that the ring exactly fitted one of the fingers of 
the little brown hand, and Mr. Beecher gave it to the 
child in token of her freedom and her friends, as the 
money raised was amply sufficient to purchase her safety ; 
and presently advertising for information concerning the 
giver of the ring, he christened the child into the new life 
with the name of Rose. If the reader should ever see a 
painting by Eastman Johnson, called the ' Freedom 
Ring,' where a child sits on a tiger-skin and looks curi- 
ously and gladly at a jewel on her hand, it is this incident 
which it commemorates." 

One who knew him intimately writes as follows con- 
cerning him : 

He was the most remarkable preacher of his time, the 
most popular, the most influential. His spoken and his 
printed words have been heard and read by many mill- 
ions of his fellow-men. It is clear that he did not 



HIS ART AS AN ORATOR. 303 

achieve his great success without much deliberate calcu- 
lation. He studied other preachers, but he studied still 
more carefully himself. Health seeming to him the prime 
condition of good preaching, he sought to realize the 
most perfect health imaginable in his own body, and his 
success was very great. He was particularly careful of 
the condition of his body on his preaching days. His 
Sundays were ascetic. He allowed himself only so much 
food as would prevent faintness. Those who met him 
Saturdays in the print-shops and picture-galleries often 
imagined that his Sunday sermon was already written, or 
that he would trust to luck for it. They were wrong in 
either case. It was not written. But Mr. Beecher was 
loafing upon principle. Saturday was always his most 
careless day. It was so that he prepared himself for the 
morrow's work. His Sunday morning sermon was not 
sketched (it was very seldom written) till Sunday morn- 
ing, nor his evening sermon till the afternoon. His 
system was to keep himself full by reading and by ob- 
servation, and then, the subject once chosen, it became 
magnetic to the multitude of observations and ideas with 
which his mind was stored. In looking over the vol- 
umes of "Plymouth Pulpit" the first impression we receive 
is of the astonishing variety of subjects treated ; the next 
is of the variety of treatment — the preacher's prodigality 
of perception and imagination. The sermons have little 
logical connection or organic unity. Their strength is in 



304 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

the parts rather than in the wholes. They abound in 
illustrations, and there are bursts of stormy eloquence. 
These give the hearers their impression. Mr. Beecher 
was always given to illustrations, but he used fifty in his 
maturity where he used one in his youth. He was always 
seeking for analogies in his walks about town and in his 
rambles in the country, and they returned to him when 
needed, and became the spontaneous method of his 
thought. 



CHAPTER XIV. 

GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 

Examples of His Oratorical Power. — Striking Passages culled from the 
Abundance. — How to speak of the Absent. — Ideal Faith. — The 
True Plan of Life. — " The Church has been so Fearful of Amuse- 
ments that the Devil has had the Care of Them." — Majesty in 
Anger. — Churches as Mutual Insurance Companies. — A Babe is a 
Mother's Anchor. — Overplus of Everything but Punishments. — 
Religion with some Men like a Church-bell, to be Rung only on 
Sacred Occasions. — The Bible and its Commentators. — Truths of 
the Bible Like Gold in the Soil. — Character, Like Porcelain, must be 
painted Before Glazing. — A Lie Always needs a Truth for a Handle. 

Mr. BEECHER's first sermon to the congregation of 
Plymouth Church has been given in a previous chapter, 
and the last sermon he preached will be referred to in a 
later one. In the forty years intervening between these 
two productions his sermons and lectures abounded in 
thoughts and expressions such as have fallen from the 
lips of no man since the days of Shakespeare. To show 
the matchless character of his oratory, nothing could be 
better than a selection from these utterances. 

About the year 1856 a member of Plymouth Church 
conceived the happy idea of making notes of some of the 
most striking passages in Mr. Beecher's sermons. The 



306 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

notes became so numerous that they were published in a 
volume under the title of " Life Thoughts." The book 
had an extensive sale and a wide popularity, and a second 
volume was issued a few years after the first. From these 
and other volumes a few of the most striking sentences 
have been selected. Unfortunately, there is so much of 
the best, so great a wealth of expression, so much of practi- 
cal value, that it is a difficult matter to endeavor to select 
any of the fruits when there are so many luscious and 
ripe hanging before our eyes. We must shake the tree 
and gather up those that fall. 

When the absent are spoken of, some will speak gold 
of them, some silver, some iron, some lead, and some 
always speak dirt, for they have a natural attraction tow- 
ard what is evil, and think it shows penetration in 
them. As a cat watching for mice does not look up 
though an elephant goes by, so they are so busy mousing 
for defects that they let great excellences pass them un- 
noticed. I will not say it is not Christian to make beads 
of others' faults, and tell them over every day ; I say it 
is infernal. If you want to know how the devil feels, 
you do know if you are such an one. 



Our best actions are often those of which we are un- 
conscious, but this can never be unless we are always 
yearning to do good. 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 307 

There are many people who are so refined in their 
tastes — and by their refinement I mean the passage of a 
thing from a gross form to its evanishing point in the im- 
material — that they live in the ideal rather than in the 
actual. Such have an sesthetical faith. They have so cul- 
tivated their eye fur colors that they can almost see the 
gleaming of the precious stones in the wall of heaven ; and 
they have taught their ear so to appreciate harmonious 
sounds that they can almost hear the celestial bells ring- 
ing sweet invitation to them ; and they have so strength- 
ened and purified their social natures that the fiery edges 
of heavenly affection almost touch theirs, as cloud light- 
ning touches cloud lightning. How wretched will such 
be, when through death they really enter the realm of 
the invisible, to find that they have failed of the highest 
faith, the faith of the moral nature, which alone will ad- 
mit them to the companionship of God ! 



You know how the heart is subject to freshets ; you 

know how the mother, who, always loving her child, yet, 

seeing in it some new wile of affection will catch it up 

and cover it with kisses, and break forth in a rapture of 

loving. Such a kind of heart -glow fell from the Saviour 

upon that young man who said to Him, " Good Master, 

what good thing shall I do that I may inherit eternal 

life?" It is said, "Then Jesus, beholding him, loved 

him." 

13* 



308 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

In plan, include the whole ; in execution, take life day 
by day. Men do not know how to reconcile the oppug- 
nant directions that we should live for the future, and 
yet should find our life in fidelities to the present ; but 
the last is only the method of the past. True aiming in 
life, is like true aiming in marksmanship. We always 
look at the fore-sight of a rifle through the hind-sight. 



A noble man compares and estimates himself by an 
idea which is higher than himself, and a mean man by 
one which is lower than himself. The one produces as- 
piration ; the other, ambition. Ambition is the way in 
which a vulgar man aspires. 

An ambition which has conscience in it will always be 
a laborious and faithful engineer, and will build the road 
and bridge the chasms between itself and eminent success 
by the most faithful and minute performances of duty. 



All true ambition and aspiration are without compari- 
son. 



We are bound to be the almoners of God's bounty — not 
tax-gatherers, to take away what little others have. As 
a father stands in the midst of his household, and says, 
" What is best for my children ? " so we are to stand in 
the world, and say, "What is best for my brotherhood ? " 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 309 

Our people, nomadic as the Arabs, impetuous as the 
Goths and Huns, pour themselves along our Western 
border, carrying with them all their wealth and all their 
institutions. They drive schools along with them as 
shepherds drive sheep, and troops of colleges go lowing 
over the Western plains, like Jacob's kine. 



The Church has been so fearful of amusements that 
the devil has had the care of them. The chaplet of 
flowers has been snatched from the brow of Christ and 
given to Mammon. 



There is an anger that is damnable ; it is the anger of 
selfishness. There is an anger that is majestic as the 
frown of Jehovah's brow ; it is the anger of truth and 
love. If a man meets with injustice, it is not required 
that he shall not be roused to meet it ; but if he is angry 
after he has had time to think upon it, that is sinful. 
The flame is not wrong, but the coals are. 



Never forget what a man has said to you when he was 
angry. If he has charged you with anything, you had 
better look it up. Anger is a bow that will shoot some- 
times where another feeling will not. 



If the architect of a house had one plan, and the con- 
tractor another, what conflicts would there be! How 



310 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

many walls would have to come down, how many doors 
and windows would need to be altered, before the two 
could harmonize! Of the building of life, God is the 
architect, and man is the contractor. God has one plan 
and man has another. Is it strange that there are clash- 
ings and collisions ? 



There are hundreds of churches which are nothing but 
mutual insurance companies, seeking to take care of 
themselves and of one another, and to see that religion is 
protected. Religion protected ! It was given us for 
our protection, and we are not to carry it unused and 
shielded from blows, but to put it on like armor, and to 
go down with it to the battle. When Paul said, " Quit 
ye like men," he was not thinking of those Christians 
who are rocked in the cradle of a conservative church, 
by the slippered foot of a soft-speaking minister, to all 
delicate ditties ; but of a stalwart soldier, with his face as 
bronzed as his helmet, and ready for the fray. 



It is not a man's part merely to keep his armor bright ; 
to hang around the edge of the fight, and, whenever he 
sees it bulging out toward him, to retreat to a hill, and, 
if any dust has fallen upon his armor, to set to work at 
once to brush it off. It is a man's business to go down to 
the battle, and to use his sword when he gets there. 
Man was not meant to be an armor-keeper ; but there are 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 3 I.I 

men who go all their lives scrubbing up their armor — 
keeping their hope bright and their faith bright, but never 
using them. Miserable, scouring Christians ! 



There is much contention among men whether thought 
or feeling is the better ; but feeling is the bow, and thought 
the arrow, and every good archer must have both. Alone, 
one is as helpless as the other. The head gives artillery ; 
the heart, powder. The one aims and the other fires. 



The aster has not wasted spring and summer because 
it has not blossomed. It has been all the time preparing 
for what is to follow, and in autumn it is the glory of the 
field, and only the frost lays it low. So there are many 
people who must live forty or fifty years, and have the 
crude sap of their natural dispositions changed and sweet- 
ened before the blossoming time can come ; but their life 
has not been wasted. 



A babe is a mother's anchor. She cannot swing far 
from her moorings. And yet a true mother never lives 
so little in the present as when by the side of the cradle. 
Her thoughts follow the imagined future of her child. 
That babe is the boldest of pilots, and guides her fearless 
thoughts down through scenes of coming years. The old 
ark never made such a voyage as the cradle daily makes. 



312 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

At first babes feed on the mother's bosom, but always 
on her heart. 



God is a being who gives everything but punishment 
in over-measure. The whole divine character and ad- 
ministration, the whole conception of God as set forth 
in the Bible and in nature, is of a being of munificence, 
of abundance, and superabundance. Enough is a meas- 
uring word — a sufficiency and no more; economy, not 
profusion. God never deals in this way. With Him 
there is always a magnificent overplus. The remotest 
corner of the globe is full of wonder and beauty. The 
laziest bank in the world, away from towns, where no 
artists do congregate, upon which no farm laps, where 
no vines hang their cooling clusters, nor flowers spring, 
nor grass invites the browsing herd, is yet spotted and 
patched with moss of such exquisite beauty, that the 
painter who in all his life should produce one such thing 
would be a master in art and immortal in fame, and it 
has the hair of ten thousand reeds combed over its brow, 
and its shining sand and insect tribes might win the 
student's lifetime. God's least thought is more prolific 
than man's greatest abundance. 



Looked at without educated associations, there is no 
difference between a man in bed and a man in a coffin. 
And yet, such is the power of the heart to redeem the 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 313 

animal life, that there is nothing more exquisitely refined, 
and pure, and beautiful, than the chamber of the house. 
The couch ! From the day that the bride sanctifies it to 
the day when the aged mother is borne from it, it stands 
clothed with loveliness and dignity. Cursed be the 
tongue that dares speak evil of the household bed ! By 
its side oscillates the cradle ! Not far from it is the crib. 
In this sacred precinct, the mother's chamber, lies the 
heart of the family. Here the child learns its prayer. 
Hither, night by night, angels troop. It is the Holy of 
Holies. 



If a bell were hung high in heaven which the angels 
swung whenever a man was lost, how incessantly would 
it toll in days of prosperity for men gone down, for honor 
lost, for integrity lost, and for manhood lost, beyond con- 
trol ! But in times of disaster the sounds would inter- 
mit, and the angels, looking down, would say, " He that 
findeth his life shall lose it, but he that loseth his life for 
my sake shall find it." 



Some men think that religion is a mere ecstatic ex- 
perience, like a tune rarely played upon some faculty ; 
living only while it is being performed, and then dying 
in silence. And, indeed, many men carry their religion 
as a church carries its bell — high up in a belfry, to ring 
out on sacred days, to strike for funerals, or to chime for 



3H LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

weddings. All the rest of the time it hangs high above 
reach — voiceless, silent, dead. But religion is not the 
specialty of any one feeling, but the mood and harmony 
of the whole of them. It is the whole soul marching 
heavenward to the music of joy and love, with well-ranked 
faculties, every one of them beating time and keeping 
time. 



To be praised, and to have the reputation of liberality, 
is the way many people have of taking interest on what 
they lend to the Lord. 



The Bible is the most betrashed book in the world. 
Coming to it through commentaries is much like looking 
at a landscape through garret windows, over which gene- 
rations of unmolested spiders have spun their webs. 



Our real commentators are our strongest traits of char- 
acter ; and we usually come out of the Bible with all those 
texts sticking to us which our idiosyncrasies attract. 



How sad is that field from which battle has just de- 
parted ! By as much as the valley was exquisite in its 
loveliness, is it now sublimely sad in its desolation. Such 
to me is the Bible, when a fighting theologian has gone 
through it. 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 3 1 5 

What a pin is when the diamond has dropped from its 
setting, that is the Bible when its emotive truths have 
been taken away. What a babe's clothes are when the 
babe has slipped out of them into death, and the mother's 
arms clasp only raiment, would be the Bible, if the Babe 
of Bethlehem, and the truths of deep-heartedness that 
clothed his life, should slip out of it. 



Sink the Bible to the bottom of the ocean, and man's 
obligations to God would be unchanged. He would have 
the same path to tread, only his lamp and his guide would 
be gone ; he would have the same voyage to make, only 
his compass and chart would be overboard. 



Many people regard the Bible as an old ruin. They 
think there may be some chambers in it which might be 
made habitable, if it were worth the while ; but they take 
it as a young heir takes his estate, who says, " I shall 
build me a modern house to live in, but I'll keep the old 
castle as a ruin ; " and so they have some scientific or 
literary house to live in, and look upon the Bible only as 
a romantic relic of the past. 



The truths of the Bible are like gold in the soil. Whole 
generations walk over it, and know not what treasures are 
hidden beneath. So centuries of men pass over the 
Scriptures, and know not what riches lie under the feet 



3l6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

of their interpretation. Sometimes, when they discover 
them, they call them new truths. One might as well call 
gold, newly dug, new gold. 



The Bible, without a spiritual life to interpret it, is 
like a trellis on which no vine grows — bare, angular, and 
in the way. The Bible, with a spiritual life, is like a 
trellis covered with a luxuriant vine — beautiful, odorous, 
and heavy with purple clusters shining through the 
leaves. 



Dust, by its own nature, can rise only so far above the 
road ; and birds which fly higher never have it upon 
their wings. So the heart that knows how to fly high 
enough escapes those little cares and vexations which 
brood upon the earth, but cannot rise above it into that 
purer air. 



As birds in the hour of transmigration feel the impulse 
of southern lands, and gladly spread their wings for the 
realm of light and bloom, so may we, in the death-hour, 
feel the sweet solicitations of the life beyond, and joyfully 
soar from the chill and shadow of earth to fold our wings 
and sing in the summer of an eternal heaven ! 



Every man in a Christian church ought to feel that he 
uses the power of the whole, yet never so as to take away 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 317 

from him the need of individual exertion. If we have 
experience, any brother has a right to come to us and 
say, " Put your experience, as a bridge, over that stream 
which I must cross. I want timber there to walk on." 



How hateful is that religion which says, " Business is 
business, and politics are politics, and religion is religion ! " 
Religion is using everything for God ; but many men 
dedicate business to the devil, and politics to the devil, 
and shove religion into the cracks and crevices of time, 
and make it the hypocritical outcrawling of their leisure 
and laziness. 



The whole earth is like a caldron, boiling and seething 
with human passions. Man is at war with man, and 
everywhere are rage and animosity. When, from God's 
fatherhood, shall come the truth of our brotherhood ? 
Lord Jesus, what hast thou done since thou wentest away ? 
Hast thou forgotten thine errand hither ? Art thou not 
weary of this globe, which swings about thy throne on its 
bitter path with anthems of pain and woe ? Hasten the 
time when the whole world, enchoired by love, shall go 
its golden way singing thy praise and its joy ! 



A man in a state of hot-brain nervousness is burning 
up. He is like a candle in a hot candlestick, which burns 
off at one end and melts down at the other. 



3l8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

People say, " How fortunate it is that things have 
turned out just as they have — that I was prepared for 
this ! " As if God did not arrange the whole ! One 
might as well say, " How fortunate it is that I have a 
neck beneath my head, and shoulders under my neck ! " 



Character, like porcelain ware, must be painted before 
it is glazed. There can be no change after it is burned 
in. 



When our cup runs over, we let others drink the drops 
that fall, but not a drop from within the rim, and call it 
charity ; when the crumbs are swept from our table, we 
think it generous to let the dogs eat them ; as if that 
were charity which permits others to have what we can- 
not keep ; which says to Ruth, " Glean after the young 
men," but forgets to say to the young men, " Let fall also 
some of the handfuls of purpose for her." 



Our children that die young are like those spring bulbs 
which have their flowers prepared beforehand, and have 
nothing to do but to break ground, and blossom, and 
pass away. Thank God for spring flowers among men, 
as well as among the grasses of the field. 



In the earlier ages of New England, the State was noth- 
ing but Congregationalism in civil affairs, and the Church 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 319 

was nothing but republicanism carried into religious af- 
fairs. They reflected each other. New Englandism is 
but another word for Puritanism in the Independent 
sense, and that is but another word for New Testament- 
ism. 



Conceited men often seem a harmless kind of men, who, 
by an overweening self-respect, relieve others from the 
duty of respecting them at all. 



A man will confess sins in general ; but those sins which 
he would not have his neighbor know for his right hand, 
which bow him down with shame like a wind-stricken 
bulrush, those he passes over in his prayer. Men are 
willing to be thought sinful in disposition ; but in special 
acts they are disposed to praise themselves. They there- 
fore confess their depravity and defend their conduct. 
They are wrong in general, but right in particular. 



Defeat is a school in which Truth always grows strong. 



The elect are whosoever will, and the non-elect whoso- 
ever won't. 



Flowers are the sweetest things that God ever made 
and forgot to put a soul into. 



320 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

All things in the natural world symbolize God, yet none 
of them speak of Him but in broken and imperfect words. 
High above all He sits, sublimer than mountains, grander 
than storms, sweeter than blossoms and tender fruits, 
nobler than lords, truer than parents, more loving than 
lovers. His feet tread the lowest places of the earth ; but 
His head is above all glory, and everywhere He is su- 
preme. 



What cares the child, when the mother rocks it, though 
all storms beat without ? So we, if God doth shield and 
tend us, shall be heedless of the tempests and blasts of 
life, blow they never so rudely. 



A man living at an hotel is like a grape-vine in a flower- 
pot — movable, carried around from place to place, docked 
at the root and short at the top. Nowhere can a man 
get real root-room, and spread out his branches till they 
touch the morning and the evening, but in his own house. 



No man can tell whether he is rich or poor by turning 
to his ledger. It is the heart that makes a man rich. 
He is rich or poor according to what he is, not according 
to what he has. 



The abetters of slavery are weaving the thread in the 
loom, but God is adjusting the pattern. They are asses 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 32 1 

harnessed to the chariot of Liberty, and whether they will 
or no, must draw it on. 



A lie always needs a truth for a handle to it, else the 
hand would cut itself which sought to drive it home upon 
another. The worst lies, therefore, are those whose blade 
is false, but whose handle is true. 



In this world, it is not what we take up, but what we 
give up, that makes us rich. 



The most dangerous infidelity of the day is the infidel- 
ity of rich and orthodox churches. 



Any feeling that takes a man away from his home is 
a traitor to the household. 



There is always the need for a man to go higher, if he 
has the capacity to go. 



Liberty is the soul's right to breathe, and when it can- 
not take a long breath, laws are girdled too tight. With- 
out liberty man is in a syncope. 



There is always somebody to believe in anyone who is 
uppermost. 



322 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Death is the dropping of the flower that the fruit may 
swell. 



Of all earthly music, that which reaches the farthest 
into heaven is the beating of a loving heart. 



Reason can tell how love affects us, but cannot tell 
what love is. 



There is no harder shield for the devil to pierce with 
temptation than singing with prayer. 



Many of our troubles are God dragging us, and they 
would end if we could stand upon our feet and go 
whither he would have us. 



A man might frame and let loose a star to roll in its 
orbit, and yet not have done so memorable a thing before 
God as he who lets go a golden-orbed thought to roll 
through the generations of time. 

Mr. Beecher began, in May, 1885, a series of sermons 
on evolution, which drew unusually large audiences to 
Plymouth Church. They were afterward bound to- 
gether in book-form. The series was continued until 
the summer vacation of that year. The object of the 
sermons was to show the moral evolution of man rather 



GEMS FROM PULPIT UTTERANCES. 323 

than to give a scientific discussion of the theory. Mr. 
Beecher's idea was that man began on a very low basis, 
and that there was a long period when he was develop- 
ing so as to understand the existence and nature of God — 
a period of incubation, he described it. In closing his first 
sermon on the subject, clasping his hands, he said : " There 
shall come a day when life and all its troubles have passed 
away. There shall come a day when I shall know even 
as I am known, and as God the all-knowing looks through 
and through me and knows me altogether, I shall behold 
Him as He is, and shadows, figments, and partialities will 
have passed away forever and I shall know Him as I am 
known." Mr. Beecher touched lightly on the Darwinian 
theory, but went so far as to say : " I am inclined to be- 
lieve that man is, in the order of nature, in an analogy 
with the rest of God's work, and that there was a time 
when he stepped ahead of his fellow-animals." In the 
series Mr. Beecher spoke of evolution in connection with 
inspiration of the Bible, inherited sin, regeneration of 
man, design and evolution in the Church. 

While he was engaged in delivering these sermons he 
described his religious faith fully and concisely in the fol- 
lowing letter to the Rev. George Morrison, of Balti- 
more : 

"Brooklyn. June 13, 1885. 

" Dear Sir : I thank you for your friendly solicitude. 
I am sure that in the end you will not be disappointed, 
14 



324 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

though on some points you may not agree with me. 
The foundation doctrines, as I hold them, are a per- 
sonal God, Creator, and ruler over all things ; the hu- 
man family universally sinful ; the need and possibility 
and facts of conversion ; the Divine ^agency in such a 
work ; Jesus Christ the manifestation of God in human 
condition ; his office in redemption supreme. I do not 
believe in the Calvinistic form of stating the atonement, 
I do not believe in the fall of the human race in Adam, 
and of course I do not hold that Christ's work was to 
satisfy the law broken by Adam for all his posterity. 
The race was not lost, but has been ascending steadily 
from creation. I am in hearty accord with revivals and 
revival preaching, with the educating forces of the Church, 
and in sympathy with all ministers who in their several 
ways seek to build up men into the image of Jesus Christ, 
by whose faithfulness, generosity, and love I hope to be 
saved and brought home to heaven. With cordial re- 
gards, I am truly yours, 

"Henry Ward Beecher." 



CHAPTER 3^. 

INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. . 

Interesting Reminiscences and Anecdotes. — Major Pond's Story. — Beecher 
"Democratic Through and Through." — Remembrance of Old Parish- 
ioners. — The Old Lady from Indianapolis. — His Profits from Lectur- 
ing. — Angry only Once. — Refused to go to Private Houses. — Fond- 
ness for Children. — Care for Two Children on a Railway Train. — 
Never wore a Silk Hat but Once. — "Playing Horse." — Beecher and 
Sir Samuel Cunard. — Preparing Lunch with His Own Hands. — The 
Drunken Man at the Lecture. — Fast Riding on a Train. — General 
King's Recollections. — Beecher as a Travelling Companion. — Sleep- 
ing under Table-cloths. — " Mutton or Beef ? " 

Major J. B. Pond travelled with Mr. Beecher for ten 
years, Mr. Beecher doing the lecturing and Major Pond 
managing their mutual venture. This lecture experience 
brought the two men into close contact under the trying 
ordeals of travel by steam, by car and boat, in wind and 
rain, and hail and snow, and likewise in sunshine and 
balmy air. Mr. Beecher found a genial, whole-souled 
companion in Major Pond, and certainly Major Pond 
had such opportunities to see the heart and mind of Mr. 
Beecher in a way that few others than the immediate 
members of Mr. Beecher's family have had the chance 
to enjoy. Major Pond in all these years saw Mr. 



326 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD &EECHER. 
i 

Beecher angry but once — at least, Mr. Beecher said he 
was, but there was doubt of the depth of his wrath. 
The preacher was always even-tempered and democratic, 
and only once did h£ wear a silk hat. In an interview 
during Mr. Beecher's illness, Major Pond ran over his 
experience with the great orator, and recalled much that 
throws a vivid light on his character and habits of life. 
About his room were many portraits of the pastor of 
Plymouth Church, while several packages of his letters 
lay in convenient drawers, besides many sermons, includ- 
ing that of Mr. Beecher's last Thanksgiving address. 
These consisted of notes only, for Mr. Beecher did not 
write out his sermons. 

When the interviewer called, Major Pond was just 
writing letters to two of Mr. Beecher's old friends, in- 
forming them of his fatal illness. To one, Mrs. Drury, 
of Canandaigua, who was introduced to Mr. Beecher by 
Ralph Waldo Emerson, Major Pond wrote that on the 
previous Tuesday Mr. Beecher was in cheerful mood and 
talked animatedly of his " Life of Christ." Another friend 
was an old lady living in Lawrenceburg, Ind., who was 
one of the pioneer members of Mr. Beecher's church 
there, and who came on to Peekskill occasionally in the 
summer to visit her old pastor's home. Major Pond was 
performing this duty because he knew it would be in ac- 
cord with Mr. Beecher's wishes. 

" Mr. Beecher," said Major Pond, after scanning one 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 327 

# 

of the letters, " was democratic through and through. 
No matter what one's position, it was the man he looked 
at. There was never a more marked exhibition of this 
trait of his than at the dinner he gave at Indianapolis last 
year to his old friends and parishioners. The old lady 
friend of whom I have spoken, in poor circumstances 
though she was, sat next to Mr. Beecher in the seat of 
honor. Rich and poor were intermingled down the table. 
His poor parishioners and their children and grandchil- 
dren were there, and Mr. Beecher's face beamed with hap- 
piness. I was just writing to the old lady that on Tues- 
day last Mr. Beecher was in high spirits and told me that 
before he plunged into his work on the ' Life of Christ ' 
he felt like first ' going on a spree.' Do you know what 
1 going on a spree ' meant with him ? Why, going around 
town to look at some bric-a-brac, stare in shop-windows, 
look at pictures, and things of that sort. 

"I first came in contact with Mr. Beecher in 1872, 
when the Redpath Bureau, in which I was a partner, en- 
gaged him to deliver seventeen consecutive lectures for 
$12,000, $6,000 being in advance, he to have expenses 
paid and a special car. That was $700 a lecture. The 
bureau cleared $5,000. He went out as far as Chicago. 
In 1876 I took him personally. For the season 1876-77 
he netted for himself $41,530 ; for 1877-78, $27,200 ; for 
1878-79, $21,200; for 1879-80, when he did but little 
lecturing, $8,500, and he has averaged about the same 



328 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

since, making a total of about $240,000 for the ten years 
for which I have his receipts. He delivered in that 
time over 1,200 lectures, and travelled 400,000 miles. 
He was a great hand to travel nights ; he was never fa- 
tigued if he could sleep afternoon, and his afternoon nap 
he always took, if possible, whether travelling or not. 

" I have seen Mr. Beecher under all circumstances, and 
I never saw him angry but once. The circumstances 
were most trying. In all his travelling, Mr. Beecher had 
one rule from which he refused to deviate ; he would 
never go to a private house, unless it might be that of 
some old friend. He was travelling in Iowa, and a friend 
of his, an ex-Congressman and then president of a rail- 
road, invited him to stop over in his place and preach on 
Sunday. Mr. Beecher consented, provided a special car 
should be sent to the place where he lectured on Satur- 
day evening so that he would not have to travel on Sun- 
day, and he should not be obliged to go to a private 
house. I wrote accordingly. The president came in his 
own private car and took Mr. and Mrs. Beecher and my- 
self to his town. On our arrival, at 2 A.M., he marched 
us to his own house. Mr. Beecher declined to go in. 
* I assured you/ he said to his would-be host, ' that I 
would not go to a private house.' I went back and tried 
to find an hotel. I could get into none, and so reported 
to Mr. Beecher, and told him that the best he could do 
was to remain at the house. He then turned to the rail- 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 329 

road president and said : ' I am very angry, fir ! ' Yet he 
had to stay there, and the next morning he was all right. 
He was splendidly entertained. 

" Mr. Beecher was the best traveller I ever knew after 
he got started. I had great difficulty in getting him to 
undertake long journeys, notably to California and to 
England the second time. I had to urge the desire of the 
people and his friends to see him, and work all possible 
motives for two or three years before he made up his mind 
to the California trip. When he was travelling he never 
complained ; he always found diversion. He would eat 
with the crowd at the poorest tavern, and took what was 
set before him ; he never had a mqal in his room. He 
made himself at home in the cars, and it would be only a 
few minutes after he had stepped into a car full of people 
before he would be a general favorite and everybody felt 
the better for his being there. 

" Mr. Beecher was wonderfully fond of children, and he 
always carried oranges and candies in his pockets to help 
entertain them on the cars. If he saw a poor mother with 
a baby crying in her arms he would go and comfort it and 
make it stop its crying where others failed. In coming 
up from Washington one time a characteristic incident 
occurred. There were two little children, boy and girl, 
eight or nine years old, in the car, and they huddled close 
up together and appeared to be very fond of each other. 
We had breakfast at Wilmington, but the children did 



330 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

not get off the car, and they had evidently travelled all 
night without anything to eat. When Mr. Beecher came 
back from breakfast his arms were laden with good things 
for the children. Then he talked to them. Fie found 
that they were from the South, that their parents had died, 
and that they were on their way to this city to find an 
uncle whom they expected to meet them. The train was 
late — what if the uncle should fail to meet them ? When 
the train arrived in Jersey City Mr. Beecher got out of 
the car with the children, walked slowly along, looking 
around to see if he could discover anyone looking for 
them, and got out between the two ferries and stood 
there waiting until both boats had gone. Soon a man 
came hurrying along in great distress and saw the two 
children, but as he expected to find them unaccompanied, 
he stopped in doubt. Mr. Beecher suspected that he 
might be the uncle, and asked him what he was looking 
for. 

" ' Two children.' 

" ' Well,' said Mr. Beecher, ' I guess they're here. 
These look like two children, don't they ?' 

" It was the uncle, and he was indeed grateful. Thank- 
ing Mr. Beecher, he said : 

" ' Will you kindly give me your name ?' 

" ' My name is Beecher.' 

" ' Where do you live ? ' 

" ' In Brooklyn.' 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 33 1 

" * What ! Can you be the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher ? ' 

" ' I am inclined to think I am.' 

" Tears came into the man's eyes, and he explained to 
the little ones who it was who had befriended them. The 
two children soon after were seen in Plymouth Church, 
and they have since then listened to Mr. Beecher's ser- 
mons frequently. 

" In all his lecture tours Mr. Beecher gave only six dis- 
appointments, and two of them were at Lebanon, Penn., 
once because * Mackey's Guide ' got Lebanon, N. J., and 
Lebanon, Penn., mixed, and once because of a snow-storm, 
two years ago. Mr. Beecher might have got there one 
hour and a half late, but he would never endanger his 
health or the interests of his church, and he would have 
been in no condition to . speak. The Lebanon Lecture 
Bureau recently began suit against Mr. Beecher for dam- 
ages for this. Once he disappointed the Young Men's 
Christian Association at Utica, and, being Christians, I 
suppose they will never forgive him. He disappointed 
the Boston people last fall, as the steamer from England 
arrived only two days before the time set for the lecture, 
and he had been sick. 

" Mr. Beecher has drawn larger audiences with higher 

prices than any other man in this country. John B. 

Gough was the next. Gough was a professional, but he 

could not get the price Mr. Beecher did. Mr. Beecher 

went twice to California, and passed all over the Pacific 
14* 



332 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

railroads. He has lectured in every State and Territory 
of the Union except Idaho, Arizona, and Mississippi, and 
never was man received with more cordiality than he. 
Every year he has lectured in Boston, Philadelphia, Balti- 
more, Washington, Cincinnati, St. Louis, and Chicago. 
He never had a set lecture. He did have a subject which 
he adapted to the times, and that was : ' The Reign of 
the Common People,' and to this he tacked every theme ; 
it was a sort of advance-guard. Money was no tempta- 
tion to him. It was all I could do to induce him to go to 
England again, though he was anxious to see Dr. and 
Mrs. Parker. He needed a great deal of money, and he 
spent a great deal. Despite his dislike of long journeys, 
I took him the last time on a circuit of the country from 
the Northwest by the Northern Pacific to the Pacific 
slope, thence down and back by the Southern Pacific. 
We started from Brantford, Ont., on July 9th ; he trav- 
elled and lectured six times a week and preached on 
Sundays until October 9th, when we reached Charleston, 
S. C, and we never saw a drop of rain till we got back 
to New York, and not one hot day till we reached San 
Antonio, Tex. 

" I had cancelled Mr. Beecher's lecture engagements 
for two years, so that he could give his time to his ' Life 
of Christ ' and his autobiography, which C. L. Webster 
& Co. were to publish. I think he was revising the 
* Life of Christ,' and that this work was very nearly done, 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 333 

so that it will soon appear. Nothing had been done on 
the autobiography. I shall publish his tour in England 
in a few days, with the title, l A Summer in England with 
Henry Ward Beecher.' " 

Major Pond's attention was called to the statement 
which has been published, and which has been received 
with general credence, that Mr. Beecher never wore a 
silk hat. The major smiled, and then quickly exclaimed : 
" Only once. I must tell you about that. I was at Mr. 
Beecher's house one afternoon, and we were to leave the 
house at four o'clock in order to catch a train. Mr. 
Beecher, according to his custom of an afternoon, had 
lain down for a nap. I was in the library, when, as the 
hour approached, Mrs. Beecher called my attention to 
the fact and asked where Mr. Beecher was. I went up 
to call him, but he was not in his room. I went down- 
stairs and thought I would get my hat, which was a silk 
one. I could not find it where I had left it, in the hall- 
way. Just then Mrs. Beecher called my attention to the 
front of the house. Mr. Beecher had a cardigan jacket 
which he used to wear around the house at times, and you 
can imagine that it was not particularly becoming to his 
form. I went to where Mrs. Beecher stood and looked 
out. There in the middle of the street, with a lot of 
children around him, was Mr. Beecher in his cardigan, 
my silk hat on his head, and a stick in his mouth with 
strings attached, as children make bits, and he was pranc- 



334 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ing up and down and back and forth and playing horse 
with the youngsters. You would have died a-laughing 
seeing that sight. ' Henry,' exclaimed Mrs. Beecher, 
' what on earth are you doing ? Do you know what a 
sight you are ? You will lose the train.' 

" Mr. Beecher stopped, drew out his watch — he always 
carried a first-class time-keeper — and replying, as he put 
it back, ' No, I won't, I've got two minutes yet,' off he 
galloped with the children at his heels in high glee. He 
used up the two minutes, and we just caught the ferry- 
boat in time. Many a time have we barely caught the 
last boat ; but Mr. Beecher's watch was as true as steel, 
and he always calculated apparently to the second. 
When he got on the ferryboat he never stopped until he 
landed in the pilot-house. He had the key to them, and 
every pilot knew him, and there he would go and stay 
until the boat had got to her landing." 

A few years ago Major Pond visited Brattleboro', Vt., 
in company with Mr. Beecher, and the latter said that 
fifty years before that date he was engaged to deliver a 
Fourth of July oration in Brattleboro'. Fie lived ten 
miles away, and the committee offered him the choice 
between his expenses or ten dollars in cash. He took 
the cash and walked to and from Brattleboro'. 

One of his closest friends in Boston, to whom in the 
course of a long intimacy Mr. Beecher probably wrote 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 335 

more letters than to any other one person, says that it 
was no uncommon thing for Beecher to appear in his 
counting-room a little after five o'clock in the afternoon 
when he was to lecture in Tremont Temple or Music 
Hall in the evening, and announce that He had just come 
from the New York train, and wanted a nap before he 
went to his hotel to get ready for the lecture. Here he 
felt sure of absolute privacy ; no one could get to him 
with a card or a request. He would throw himself down 
on the floor of the private office with his head on his 
valise and his travelling shawl pulled over him, sleep 
soundly for a half-hour or an hour, then start up, go to 
his hotel, and write his lecture. 

" I remember finding him once," says his friend, " with 
the pages of his manuscript sown all over his table and 
the floor about him in his room at Parker's at 7.15 P.M., 
when he was to speak at 7.30 P.M. I began picking up 
the paper, hurrying him up and putting the pages to- 
gether for him. ' Oh ! there's time enough, time enough 
— plenty of time,' was all the answer he made to my re- 
monstrances. He was on his platform at the moment 
advertised, primed full of his subject. It would have 
made no difference, I really believe, if he hadn't written 
a word of it down, though he took his hastily prepared 
manuscript with him." 

When Beecher was returning from his first trip to Eu- 
rope, he was asked to preach on board the Cunarder on 



336 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

which he was returning. He refused. Sir Samuel Cu- 
nard and a number of clergymen of the English Church 
were coming over, and Beecher said that he was having 
a vacation and did not care to come before these people. 
An over-zealous American friend tried to induce Sir 
Samuel to press Mr. Beecher into the service. Then the 
steamship man made his famous six-word speech con- 
demning all Americans and the Collins line together. Out 
of this incident grew an absurd story which gained a good 
deal of newspaper currency at the time, that Beecher 
wished to preach on board ship and was not allowed a 
chance. 

" He had refused up and down to speak, and his inde- 
pendence made old Sir Samuel a little grouty," says the 
friend who made this ocean journey with him. " I 
shouldn't have brought up the old story, but it reminds 
me of a most Beecher-like speech that he made as a 
number of us sat on deck together. Dr. Chapin had 
been over as a delegate to the peace convention at Brus- 
sels, and someone asked Beecher why he had not gone 
too. ' Not I,' he replied ; ■ not I. Never but once did I 
try to preach on peace, and then my pump sucked. ' ' 

Once he wrote to invite a Boston man and his wife, 
whom he knew very well, and who were spending a few 
days in a New York hotel, to come over and take tea at 
his house in Brooklyn. Not content with sending the 
note, he came for his friends, and escorted them to 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 337 

Brooklyn. Not until they were in his house did he tell 
them that Mrs. Beecher was away in the country, " up 
in Peekskill looking after the poultry," and that there 
was not a soul in the house but himself, not even a ser- 
vant. He gave his visitors some new pictures and books 
to look at, and presently they heard the street door 
close. After a short time he returned with a loaf of 
bread and invited them down to a picturesque repast. 
He had set the table himself, and had decorated it with 
vases and bric-a-brac in a most fantastic manner. After 
a luncfr of olives and cheese and such other edibles as a 
house whose mistress was absent might furnish to guests, 
they were taken up-stairs, and presently people began to 
arrive. Mr. Beecher had invited a number of his parish- 
ioners to meet his Boston friends. He would not allow 
them to go back to New York after these people had 
gone. " But," says the lady who tells the story, " Mr. 
Beecher was not equal to the task of getting breakfast 
for us, and he went out and got us invited with him to 
the home of the Howards, not far away." 

" He was always the youngest member of his family," 
says another of his friends — " always the most sympa- 
thetic friend of his boys and his daughter. Nothing in 
which they were interested was too small to interest 
him, all through their babyhood and childhood. His 
farm, which he always tried to take seriously, but never 
quite succeeded in doing, was a great source of pleasure 



338 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to him. He was particularly fond of arboriculture, and 
was always making experiments with seeds and plants, 
expecting presently to produce something surprising. 
He was always buoyant, boyish, and happy, when re- 
lieved in the slightest from pressing cares. 

" Once in Saratoga," says a former president of the 
American Institute of Instruction, " Mr. Beecher was 
advertised to lecture before our body on the new edu- 
cation. A pretty preface, intended as a compliment to 
him, had been arranged. As he entered the church 
where the lecture was to be given, a dozen young girls 
were to sing a song for which they had been drilled in 
Boston, and which they had come to Saratoga to sing at 
the closing meeting of our convention. I went over to 
Mr. Beecher's hotel, and we started to walk to the church 
together. I spoke to him of the little plan about the 
singing. He stopped short on the pavement. ' Can't 
have any singing before I speak,' he said. Here was a 
dilemma. I urged it ; I explained ; I entreated ; all in 
vain. ' Can't have anyone sing before I begin. Let 
them sing afterward.' There was nothing to do but 
to leave him there and go on ahead and stop the per- 
formance of this part of the programme. Then I went 
back to the street. Beecher was nowhere to be found. 
I wandered up and down, back and forth, for several 
minutes. At last I found him in a quiet side-street, 
leaning over an orchard fence, evidently absorbed in 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING 1'OURS. 339 

thought. He had forgotten about me and my errand 
completely. I stepped up and tapped him on the arm. 
1 Mr. Beecher,' said I, ' your audience is waiting for you. 
There will be no singing.' He rushed across the street 
and into the church, up the aisle, and into the finest lect- 
ure I ever heard him give. After it was over he was 
affable and cordial as ever. The danger of having his 
mind diverted by a bevy of singers once past, he was a 
good deal more at his best than if he had not had his 
combativeness aroused." 

Whenever he went to Boston, Mr. Beecher visited the 
Old Corner Bookstore, where he was wont to order 
charged every new book that took his fancy. He liked 
to stand about chatting with the frequenters of the place, 
sometimes joking about the slow sales of his own books of 
late years, and commenting upon other people's work in 
his own peculiar way. One day his attention was called 
by Mr. Cupples to a set of books put down in the front 
of the store ; every life of Christ by every author was put 
on sale. There were twenty or thirty different volumes, 
including the ones by Strauss and Renan, as well as Mr. 
Beecher's own. The first volumes of this much discussed 
work was there, the bulkiest one of all, " and the poorest 
one in the whole collection," said Mr. Beecher, modestly ; 
"Farrar's 'Life' is worth more than all the rest put to- 
gether." 

Mr. Beecher was speaking on " Communism " once in 



340 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Chicago when a rather dramatic and very characteristic 
thing happened. His lecture was half finished. He was 
standing before an audience of ten thousand people in the 
old Tabernacle building, a temporary structure on Frank- 
lin Street, put up to accommodate the vast audiences 
which thronged in those days to hear Moody and Sankey, 
then in the heyday of their early work and enthusiasm. 
The great room was packed. Beecher rolled out sentence 
after sentence in his most telling manner. Word after 
word fell forcibly upon the vast crowd, which grew more 
and more silent as he went on. A reporter at the table 
down in front of the platform dropped a lead-pencil, and 
one could almost feel th-e noise it made, so breathlessly 
were all in that audience listening to the orator's voice. 
He was telling the story of the rise of the power of the peo- 
ple. Presently he ended a ringing period with these words, 
pronounced in a voice so deep and fervid and full of con- 
viction that they seemed to have been uttered then for the 
first time : " The voice of the people is the voice of God." 

Into the absolute and intense silence of the instant that 
followed fell the voice of a half-drunken man in the gal- 
lery : " The voice of the people is the voice of a fool." 

Everybody fairly shivered. But Beecher was equal to 
the moment. He drew himself up, looked toward the 
place from which the disturbing voice came, and — " I said 
the voice of the people, not the voice of one man," he 
replied, with perfect simplicity and dignity. 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 341 

It would be impossible to describe the responsive ex- 
pression of the audience. It was not a laugh, it was not 
a cheer. It was a movement, a sound like one great sigh 
of relief and delight. The lecture went on ; the air was 
full of electric sympathy tingling toward an explosion of 
some sort. Beecher knew it, and seemed waiting for a 
chance to put his finger on the key of the pent-up per- 
sonal enthusiasm which moved his audience. The 
drunken fellow suddenly gave him a chance. He stag- 
gered to his feet, feeling that the odds were against him, 
and mumbled out some unintelligible words. Beecher 
paused a second time in his lecture. Then he said, with 
that smile of his, at once winning and condemning, which 
so many people know : " Will some kind person take our 
friend out and give him some cold water — plenty of it — 
within and without ? " Two policemen had hold of the 
disturber by this time, and the audience had liberty to 
cheer — and such a cheer as it was ! The Tabernacle 
shook with it, and it is probable that at least nine-tenths 
of the people who clapped their hands supposed that they 
were cheering Beecher's wit, instead of that tremendous 
personal power which no one need try to analyze. 

While Mr. Beecher was lecturing before a large audi- 
ence in Canandaigua one June evening in 1877, a locomo- 
tive stood steaming before a handsome car at the depot, 
waiting specially to take the speaker and Major Pond, his 



342 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

manager, to Rochester at the conclusion of the lecture. 
Rochester is twenty-nine miles west of Canandaigua, and 
it is the nearest point where a through sleeping car for 
New York can be reached. John Houghtaling, the 
oldest conductor on the New York Central Railroad, 
walked impatiently up and down the platform. The 
usual running time to Rochester is an hour and ten min- 
utes, the train to be caught was due in Rochester at 
1 1.08 P.M., and it was already something more than a 
quarter past ten o'clock. Going up to where Mr. Beecher 
was seated talking with some friends, the lecture being 
over, the old railroad man said : 

"We have very little time left, Mr. Beecher." 

" Plenty of time — plenty of time, my friend," said Mr. 
Beecher. " And if we had only half as much, such an 
old hand at the business as yourself would bring us 
through all right." 

" We will have to run very fast to catch the train now," 
said the conductor. 

" None too fast to suit me," said Mr. Beecher, very 
coolly. 

" But then there are such things as coal trains and 
freight trains, and what not, in the way," urged the con- 
ductor. 

" And there are such things as telegraphs to get them 
out of the way," replied Mr. Beecher. 

" Well," said the veteran conductor, in despair, " if you 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 343 

like to ride fast, you shall go from Canandaigua to 
Rochester quicker than ever a man went before, and I 
will see that the track is cleared." 

A timely despatch to headquarters sent two coal trains 
off on side switches, and left the twenty-nine miles of 
track clear for the flying special. It was 10.30 P.M. ex- 
actly when the wheels began to move, and the gray- 
haired railroader stood his lantern in the aisle and seated 
himself with a thud, as if he would have said : " When 
you want to go fast I'm your man." 

In less than a minute the car was going like the wind. 
It rocked and swayed and jumped, and waiting pas- 
sengers rushed to the depot doors as it dashed through 
villages and towns, leaving their sight almost before they 
could set eyes on it. 

" We have just passed Pittsford," said Conductor 
Houghtaling, watch in hand, in a few minutes, " seven- 
teen miles ; time, nineteen minutes." It seemed almost 
the next moment when he added, proudly : " We've 
crossed the Rochester line, twenty-six miles from Canan- 
daigua, in just twenty-six minutes. I've run on this road 
since the first train went over it, and I never came from 
Canandaigua to Rochester as quick as that before." 

The engineer slackened up a little in going the next 
three miles, through the suburbs of the city, and the car 
stopped in Rochester depot at eleven o'clock precisely, 
or just thirty minutes after leaving Canandaigua. 



344 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

General Horatio C. King says as follows : "Asa trav- 
elling companion I never knew Mr. Beecher's equal. It 
was my good-fortune to travel with him for two weeks 
in that famous lecture tour of his, several years ago, 
throughout the West, when for over six weeks he lect- 
ured almost every week-day evening and preached on 
Sundays. He always spoke of this as the time when he 
built his house at Peekskill out of wind, for it was the 
receipts from this tour which enabled him to erect the 
beautiful house at Peekskill to which he looked forward 
as his haven of rest when he had retired from the pulpit. 

" About one thing he was especially pertinacious, and 
we speedily learned not to offer to carry his extra over- 
coat, a very heavy one with which he always travelled, 
or any of his paraphernalia. This would have been an 
evidence of weakness which he scorned to manifest. 
Simple in his tastes, and easily satisfied, he was no trouble 
to anyone, and indeed he was the equal of the youngest 
of us in agility, activity, and ability to bear fatigue. It 
was on this trip that, after his lecture at Dayton, he ac- 
cepted an invitation to visit the Soldiers' Home, nearby. 
After going through all the buildings, including the hos- 
pitals, where he had a kind and encouraging word for 
all the invalid veterans, all who were able congre- 
gated around the music-stand on the green, and there for 
about twenty minutes he thrilled the hearts of these 
wards of the nation with an eloquence which I have never 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 345 

seen equalled. They were held spellbound, and before 
he closed there was*not a dry eye in that assembly of at 
least a thousand men, varying in age from forty to sixty 
years. And when he attempted to pass through the 
crowd they rushed to grasp his hand and poured forth 
their thanks until Mr. Beecher, himself almost overcome 
with emotion, was compelled to break away. 

" His reception everywhere was an ovation, and en- 
thusiastic crowds greeted every lecture, even in Louis- 
ville, where the people had not then outgrown their old- 
time prejudice. On our way home I accidentally picked 
up his felt hat, the style he almost invariably wore, and 
put it on my head. Quick as a flash he seized mine, 
which was of the same pattern, pulled it on his head with 
some difficulty, and declared that it was an even ex- 
change. I was glad to accept the situation, and although 
it took several thicknesses of paper under the band to 
make it a respectable fit, I wore it home, and have it yet 
as a memento of that memorable trip." 

Another story of travelling experience comes from Mr. 
Beecher's own lips. " In 1877," said he, " I came through 
Loudonville, O., and was forcibly reminded of my stay 
there when on my first trip out West. We stopped late 
at night, and spent Sunday there. There were two coach 
loads of us, and the little two-story brick tavern was 
nearly full when we arrived. The best they could do for 
my brother Charles and myself was to give us a couple 



346 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

of ' shakedowns ' in the dining-room. We slept late 
Sunday morning, but finally wakingrup, commenced to 
talk. I said, ' Charles, I'll bet you I can tell what they 
had at this hotel for dinner yesterday.' ' What was it ?* 
he asked. ' Roast beef,' I replied, basing my judgment 
on a stale sort of odor that pervaded the room. ' No, 
you're mistaken,' said he, shaking his head and sniffing at 
the covering of his bed ; ' it was mutton.' We both 
stoutly maintained our respective propositions, and falling 
to a vigorous smelling of our bedclothes, found the land- 
lord had given us a couple of table-cloths for bedspreads, 
and Charles had got the mutton cloth and I the beef." 

United States Judge Hugh L. Bond relates that the 
first time " Mr. Beecher lectured in the South was*on the 
evening of January 31, 1865, at the Maryland Institute. 
There was considerable objection to it among the timid. 
Chief Justice Chase, Mr. Stanton, and others sat upon 
the stand with him. A telegram was received while he 
was speaking announcing the passage of the Constitu- 
tional amendment abolishing slavery. This created 
what is known among men of the world as a ' high old 
time.' Mr. Beecher refused to allow us to pay any part 
of his expenses or to remunerate him in any respect, but, 
on the contrary, said he would come to our aid in such a 
cause as often as we called on him. This we did at a 
subsequent time, when he addressed the people at Front 
Street Theatre." 



INCIDENTS OF HIS LECTURING TOURS. 347 

" When did you last see Mr. Beecher ? " 

" At Lynchburg,. Va., in 1886. He was to lecture there, 
and came to the hotel where I was stopping. He seemed 
to have some difficulty with the committee which had 
invited him. He was to lecture on ' Evolution and 
Revolution,' but as I understood him the committee said 
the people of Lynchburg were so orthodox that they 
would listen to nothing respecting evolution or Darwin- 
ism. He changed the title to ' The Reign of the Com- 
mon People,' but it was the same lecture." 

"Did you hear it?" 

"Yes, I offered to introduce him to the audience., He 
asked if I was popular in Lynchburg. I told him I was 
quite as popular there as he was before he voted for 
Cleveland. So he thought, he said, but I had not con- 
sidered his topic. I suggested I could explain the physi- 
cal evolution theory to a country audience by the tadpole 
turning to a frog, but that when I came to mental evolu- 
tion, I should take his case and show what terrible throes 
of nature were required to make so good a Republican 
into the imperfect Mugwump. He was fond of humor, 
declined my proffered services, but asked me to sit on 
the platform." 
*5 



CHAPTER XVI. 

'HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 

His Boyhood Gardening. — Early Love for Plants and Animals. —His Gar- 
den at Lawrenceburg, Ind. — His Encouragement of Societies. — Love 
for Domestic Animals. — "Cackling," His Last Article. — His Last 
Request. — The Floral Pall and Wreath. — A Work on Flowers, Fruits, 
and Farming. — Some Interesting Extracts. — Mistakes He had Made. 
— Winter Nights for Reading. — Shiftless Tricks. — Portrait of an 
Anti-Book Farmer. — Encouragement to Agricultural Writing. — Ad- 
vantages of Farm Education. — Spring Work for Public- Spirited Men. 
— The Farm at Peekskill. — A Costly Experiment. — His Summer Re- 
treat. — An Active Farm- Hand. 

Mr. Beecher acquired a love for gardening when he 
was a boy, and worked in his father's garden at his birth- 
place at Litchfield, Conn. He was a student of the for- 
est rather than of book-lore when at Rev. Mr. Langdon's 
school. When he established his home at Lawrenceburg, 
Ind., his pride was his garden attached to the humble 
house he hired on the outskirts of the flourishing little 
town. He tilled the garden himself. He secured the 
choicest seeds, and sent East for cuttings of rare flowers 
and fruit-trees. His love for flowers amounted to a pas- 
sion. His pulpit was always adorned with flowers. He 
had floral treasures displayed in his church on every oc- 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 349 

% 
casion. In accordance with his frequently expressed 

wishes, a floral pall was thrown over his coffin instead of 
the customary black cloth ; his bier was smothered in 
roses and greens ; a floral wreath was hung on the door- 
bell instead of the streamer of crape ; the church was 
profusely decorated with flowers contributed by loving 
hands. 

He never missed an horticultural or agricultural exhibi- 
tion in his neighborhood, and in his busiest days always 
found time to join in the meetings of the societies. His 
knowledge of horticulture, floriculture, and agriculture was 
extensive, and he was regarded as an authority on the sub- 
ject. In 1859 he published a volume, " Plain and Pleas- 
ant Talk about Fruits, Flowers, and Farming," which is 
regarded as a text-book, and in which he displayed va- 
ried and comprehensive practical knowledge. He availed 
himself of every opportunity to write on these themes, 
especially in the later years of his life. His sermons are 
replete with allusions to his favorite study and pastime, 
and many of his most brilliant figures of speech are of bo- 
tanical reference. He loved all domestic animals, and 
learned their care in childhood. He always claimed that 
he was thoroughly en rapport with all domestic animals, 
and evidently was a student of them and their ways. At 
agricultural shows he would pat the cows and fondle the 
chickens like a boy. He rarely passed a dog on the 
street without a kind word and perhaps a friendly pat 



350 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

on the head. He was very fond of eggs and interested 
in the propagation of chickens. The last article he pub- 
lished was a humorous dissentation on the subject of a 
hen's cackle after laying an egg. This appeared in the 
Brooklyn Eagle, while his life was slowly ebbing away, 
and was as follows : 

" Cackling." 

Some words in. the English language are susceptible of 
many shades of meaning, but cackling is a word confined 
to one animal and to one functional condition. The 
barn-yard fowl has, so far as we are informed, the sole 
prerogative of sounding out over all the neighborhood the 
arrival of a new egg ! She is no braggart, boasting of 
what she is going to do. Indeed, her performances are 
meditated in profound secrecy. Let no one notice me, 
she seems to say, while stealing noiselessly under the cur- 
rant bushes or along a shaded thicket. Is she searching 
for a choice morsel ? It would seem so. A feather fall- 
ing through the air makes no more noise than she, hover- 
ing darkly about sheltered spots, stealing toward the mow 
with artful pretence of looking for a worm. Her nest ? 
It is curious to see what a selection of places she makes. 
It sometimes is behind a pile of wood, or beneath the edge 
of a hay-stack, or in some abandoned old wagon, or among 
the trumpery of a wood-house chamber, or under a barn, 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 35 1 

not far into darkness even, or in a hole, but just where 
light melts into twilight. 

Although laying an egg is a daily operation, it is none 
the less a serious and meditative fact. On the nest she 
ponders ! The very secret of living organization is be- 
neath her. Science has proclaimed ab ovo omnia. She 
does not know this, but she feels it. Nature is working 
mightily within her. 

But no sooner is the nest richer by an egg than a new 
act in the drama of life is set. No more secrecy. No 
more silence or reserve. All the world must know the 
good deed done ! If the nest is on high the hen flies 
down with a queer outcry, between a scream and a cackle, 
but as her foot touches ground the proclamation begins 
in regular form : " I have done it." " I have done it." 
" Laid an egg ! " " Laid an egg ! " Far off the tidings 
roll. The distant barn-yards sympathize and send back 
congratulations. But at home ! Who can tell the joy 
which fills every feathered bosom ? The stately rooster 
expands his throat, cackle answers cackle, now the 
rooster, now the hen, and it is difficult to understand 
which of the two laid the egg. After a while the silence 
is restored until another hen comes out crying " I, too, 
I, too," and the unwearied rooster sings bass to her so- 
prano. Thus it goes on through the morning. Few birds 
lay their eggs except, in the early part of the day. 

These barn-yard cries remain in our memories, associ- 



352 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ated with the coming on of spring, with bright days, after 
the snow has gone away. The crowing of a cock is asso- 
ciated with the idea of morning — the cackling of hens 
with mid-forenoon. 

It is noticeable that birds do not announce their 
achievements. They go off from their nests as silently 
as they go on. Do ducks, monkeys, quails, or pheasants, 
grouse of every name, publish their achievements ? 

Nor do we know of any animal that makes known the 
birth of its offspring. A calf or colt is born and no word 
said about it. The fox, the wolf, regard the fact as 
enough. The lion, perhaps, reflects that the birth of its 
whelp will be known soon enough. Man alone cackles — 
not at the birth of his offspring, but at his deeds and 
attainments, with often this difference : that a hen cackles 
when an egg is laid, while men often cackle most when 
least has been performed. 

When one has said a smart thing nothing will do but 
he must tell of it ; when one has performed a feat of run- 
ning, skating, batting, his household must speedily know 
it. The mother must sweetly cackle all the wonderful 
things that daily are developed in the baby. When two 
or three mothers get together the whole air resounds with 
the wonderful deeds of wonderful babies. Men cackle 
over their festivities, candidates cackle before their con- 
stituents, ministers cackle of their churches, and churches 
cackle of their ministers ; merchants cackle in advertise- 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 353 

ments ; newspapers cackle ad nauseam — of their sub- 
scribers, of their enterprise, of their various superiorities 
over all other newspapers. Indeed, by the natural opera- 
tion of the law of evolution, cackling has developed into 
a profession, and reporters are trained to await at the 
nests of events and publish to all the world what eggs the 
fecund world has laid every twenty-four hours ! 

Our cackle is ended, and we fly off from the nest with 
modest consciousness of the value of one egg. 

In the volume referred to, " Plain and Pleasant Talk," 
the breezy style shows that it was a work of love, and 
many of the articles will bear reproduction in this con- 
nection. We quote the following at random : 

Nine Mistakes. 

In so far as instruction is concerned, I esteem my mistakes to 
be more valuable than my successful efforts. They excite to at- 
tention and investigation with great emphasis. I will record a 
few. 

1. One mistake, which I record once for all, as it will probably 
occur every year, has been the attempting of more than I could 
do well. The ardor of spring, in spite of experience, lays out a 
larger garden than can be well tended all summer. 

2. In selecting the largest lima beans for seed, I obtained most 
luxuriant vines, but fewer pods. If the season were longer these 
vines would ultimately be most profitable ; but their vigor gives a 
growth too rampant for our latitude. If planted for a screen, 
however, the rankest growers are the best. 

3. Of three successive plantings of corn, for table use, the first 



354 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

was the best, then the second, and the third very poor. I hoed 
and thinned the first planting myself, and thoroughly ; the second 
I left to a Dutchman, directing him how to do it ; the third,*I 
left to him without directions. 

4. I bought a stock of roses in ike fall of the year. All the loss 
of wintering came on me. If purchased in the spring, the nur- 
serymen loses, if there is loss. 

5. I planted the silver-leaved abele (Populus alba) in a rich 
sandy loam, in which it made more wood than it could ripen. 
The tree was top-heavy, and required constant staking. A poorer 
soil should have been selected. 

6. I planted abundantly of flower-seeds — just before a drought. 
I neither covered the earth with mats nor watered it — supposing 
that the seeds would come up after the first rain. But, in a cheer- 
less and barren garden, I have learned that heat will kill planted 
seeds, and that he who will be sure of flowers should not depend 
upon only one planting. 

7. In the fall of 1843, I took up the bulbs of tuberoses, and win- 
tered them safely upon the tops of bookcases in a warm study. 
Having a better and larger stock in 1844, I would fain be yet more 
careful, and packed them in dry sand, and put them in a closet 
beyond the reach of frost. On opening them in the spring all 
were rotted save about half a dozen. Hereafter, I shall try the 
bookcase. 

8. We are told that glazed or painted flower-pots are not desir- 
able, because, refusing a passage to superfluous moisture, they 
leave the roots to become sodden. In small stove-heated parlors, 
the evaporation is so great that glazed or painted flower-pots are 
best, because the danger is of dryness rather than dampness in all 
plants growing in sandy loams or composts. 

9. I have resolved every summer for three years to cut pea- 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 355 

brush during the winter and stack it in the shed ; and every sum- 
mer following, not having kept the vow, I have lacked pea-brush ; 
being too busy to get it when it was needed, I have allowed the 
crop to suffer. 

Winter Nights for Reading. 

As the winter is a season of comparative leisure, it is the time 
for farmers to study. It is a good time for them to make them- 
selves acquainted with the nature of soils, of manures, of vege- 
table organization — or structural botany. Farmers are liable to 
rely wholly upon their own experience and to despise science. 
Book men are apt to rely on scientific theories, and nothing upon 
practice. If these two tendencies would only court and marry 
each other, what a hopeful family would they rear ! How nice it 
would look to see in the papers : 

Married. — By Philosophical Wisdom, Esq., Mr. Practical 
Experience, to Miss Sober Science. [We will stand godfather to 
all the children.] 

Shiftless Tricks. 

To let the cattle fodder themselves at the stack ; they pull out 
and trample more than they eat. They eat till the edge of appe- 
tite is gone, and then daintily pick the choice parts ; the residue, 
being coarse and refuse, they will not afterward touch. 

To sell half a stack of hay and leave the lower half open to rain 
and snow. In feeding out, a hay knife should be used on the 
stack ; in selling, either dispose of the whole, or remove that 
which is left to a shed or barn. 

It is a shiftless trick to lie about stores and groceries, arguing 
with men that you have no iitne, in a new country, for nice farm- 
15* 



356 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ing — f or making good fences ; for smooth meadows without a 
stump ; for draining wet patches which disfigure fine fields. 

To raise your own frogs in your own yard ; to permit, year after 
year, a dirty, stinking, mantled puddle to stand before your fence 
in the street. 

To plant orchards, and allow your cattle to eat the trees up. 
When gnawed down, to save your money, by trying to nurse the 
stubs into good trees, instead of getting fresh ones from the 
nursery. 

To allow an orchard to have blank spaces, where trees have 
died, and when the living trees begin to bear, to wake up and put 
young whips in the vacant spots. 

It is very shiftless to build your barn-yard so that every rain shall 
drain it ; to build your privy and dig your well close together ; to 
build a privy of more than seven feet square — some shiftless folks 
have it of the size of the whole yard ; to set it in the most exposed 
spot on the premises ; to set it at the very far end of the garden, 
for the pleasure of traversing mud-puddles and labyrinths of wet 
weeds in rainy days. 

A lady of our acquaintance, at a boarding-house, excited some 
fears among her friends, by foaming at the mouth, of madness. 
In eating a hash (made, doubtless, of every scrap from the table, 
not consumed the day before), she found herself blessed with a 
mouthful of hard soap, which only lathered the more, the more 
she washed at it. It is a filthy thing to comb one's hair in a small 
kitchen in the intervals of cooking the breakfast ; to use the 
bread -trough for a cradle — a thing which we have undoubtedly 
seen ; to put trunks, boxes, baskets, with sundry other utensils, 
under the bed where you keep the cake for company ; we have 
seen a dexterous housewife whip the bed-spread aside and bring 
forth a loaf-cake. 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 357 

It is a dirty trick to wash children's eyes in the pudding dish ; 
not that the sore eyes, but subsequent puddings, will not be bene- 
fited ; to wipe dishes and spoons on a hand-towel ; to wrap warm 
bread in a dirty table-cloth ; to make and mould bread on a table 
innocent of washing for weeks ; to use dirty table-cloths for sheets, 
a practice of which we have had experimental knowledge once at 
least in our lives. 

The standing plea of all slatterns and slovens is, that "every- 
body must eat a peck of dirt before they die." A peck ? that 
would be a mercy, a mere mouthful, in comparison of cooked cart- 
loads of dirt which is to be eaten in steamboats, canal-boats, tav- 
erns, mansions, huts, and hovels. 

It is a shiftless trick to snuff a candle with your fingers, or your 
wife's best scissors, to throw the snuff on the carpet, or on the 
polished floor, and then to extinguish it by treading on it! 

To borrow a choice book ; to read it with unwashed hands, that 
have been used in the charcoal bin, and finally to return it daubed 
on every leaf with nose-blood spots, tobacco-spatter, and dirty 
finger-marks — this is a vile trick ! 

It is not altogether cleanly to use one's knife to scrape boots, to 
cut harness, to skin cats, to cut tobacco, and then to cut apples 
which other people are to eat. 

It is an unthrifty trick to bring in eggs from the barn in one's 
coat-pocket, and then to sit down on them. 

It is a filthy trick to borrow of or lend for others' use, a tooth- 
brush, or a toothpick ; to pick one's teeth at table with a fork, or 
a jack-knife ; to put your hat upon the dinner-table among the 
dishes ; to spit generously into the fire, or at it, while the hearth 
is covered with food set to warm ; for sometimes a man hits what 
he don't aim at. 

It is an unmannerly trick to neglect the scraper outside the 



358 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

door, but to be scrupulous in cleaning your feet after you get in- 
side, on the carpet, rug, or andirons ; to bring your drenched um- 
brella into the entry, where a black puddle may leave to the house- 
wife melancholy evidence that you have been there. 

It is soul-trying for a neat dairy-woman to see her "man " water- 
ing the horse out of her milk-bucket ; or filtering horse -medicine 
through her milk-strainer ; or feeding his hogs with her water- 
pail ; or, after barn-work, to set the well-bucket outside the curb 
and wash his hands out of it. 

Portrait of an Anti-Book Farmer. 

Whenever our anti-book farmers can show us better crops at 
a less expense, better flocks, and better farms, and better owners 
on them, than book farmers can, we shall become converts to 
their doctrines. But, as yet, we cannot see how intelligence in a 
farmer should injure his crops. Nor what difference it makes 
whether a farmer gets his ideas from a sheet of paper, or from a 
neighbor's mouth, or from his own experience, so that he only 
gets good, practical, sound ideas. A farmer never objects to re- 
ceive political information from newspapers ; he is quite willing to 
learn the state of markets from newspapers, and as willing to gain 
religious notions from reading, and historical knowledge, and all 
sorts of information except that which relates to his business. He 
will go over and hear a neighbor tell how he prepares his wheat- 
lands, how he selects and puts in his seed, how he deals with his 
grounds in spring, in harvest, and after harvest-time ; but if that 
neighbor should write it all down carefully and put it into paper, 
it's all poison ! it's book farming I 

" Strange such a difference there should be 
'Twixt tweedledum and tweedledee." 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 359 

If I raise a head of lettuce surpassing all that has been seen 
hereabouts, every good farmer that loves a salad would send for a 
little seed, and ask, as he took it, " How do you contrive to raise 
such monstrous heads ? you must have some secret about it." 
But if my way were written down and printed, he would not touch 
it. "Poh, it's bookish ! " 

Now let us inquire in what States land is the best managed, 
yields the most with the least cost, where are the best sheep, the 
best cattle, the best hogs, the best wheat ? It will be found to be 
in those States having the most agricultural societies and the most 
widely disseminated agricultural papers. 

What is there in agriculture that requires a man to be ignorant 
if he will be skilful ? Or why may every other class of men learn 
by reading except the farmer ? Mechanics have their journals ; 
commercial men have their papers ; religious men, theirs ; poli- 
ticians, theirs ; there are magazines and journals for the arts, for 
science, for education, and why not for that grand pursuit on 
which all these stand ? We really could never understand why 
farmers should not wish to have their vocation on a level with 
others ; why they should feel proud to have no paper, while every 
other pursuit is fond of having one. 

Those who are prejudiced against book farming are either good 
farmers, misinformed of the design of agricultural papers, or poor 
farmers who only treat this subject as they do all others, with blun- 
dering ignorance. First, the good farmers ; there are in every 
country many industrious, hard-working men, who know that they 
cannot afford to risk anything upon wild experiments. They have 
a growing family to support, taxes to pay, lands perhaps on which 
purchase money is due, or they are straining every nerve to make 
their crops build a barn, that the barn may hold their crops. They 
suppose an agricultural paper to be stuffed full of wild fancies, 



360 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

expensive experiments, big stories made up by men who know of 
no farming except parlor farming. They would, doubtless, be 
surprised to learn that ninety-nine parts in a hundred of the con- 
tents of agricultural papers are written by hard-working practical 
farmers / that the editor's business is not to foist absurd stories 
upon credulous readers, but to sift stories, to scrutinize accounts, 
to obtain whatever has been abundantly proved to be fact, and to 
reject all that is suspected to be mere fanciful theory. Such papers 
are designed to prevent imposition ; to kill off pretenders by ex- 
posing them ; to search out from practical men whatever they have 
found out, and to publish it for the benefit of their brethren all 
over the Union ; to spread before the laboring classes such sound, 
well-approved scientific knowledge as shall throw light upon every 
operation of the farm, the orchard, and the garden. 

The other class who rail at book farming ought to be excused, 
for they do not treat book farming any worse than they do their 
own farming ; indeed, not half so bad. They rate the paper with 
their tongue ; but cruelly abuse their ground, for twelve months 
in the year, with both hands. I will draw the portrait of a genuine 
anti-book farmer of this last sort. 

He ploughs three inches deep lest he should turn up the poison 
that, in his estimation, lies below ; his wheat-land is ploughed so as 
to keep as much water on it as possible ; he sows two bushels to 
the acre and reaps ten, so that it takes a fifth of his crop to seed 
his ground ; his corn-land has never any help from him, but bears 
just what it pleases, which is from thirty to thirty-five bushels by 
measurement, though he brags that it is fifty or sixty. His hogs, 
if not remarkable for fattening qualities, would beat old Eclipse 
at a quarter-race ; and were the man not prejudiced against deep 
ploughing, his hogs would work his grounds better with their prodig- 
ious snouts than he does with his jack-knife plough. His meadow- 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 36 1 

lands yield him from three-quarters of a ton to a whole ton of hay, 
which is regularly spoiled in curing, regularly left out for a month, 
very irregularly stacked up, and left for the cattle to pull out at 
their pleasure, and half eat and half trample underfoot. His horses 
would excite the avarice of an anatomist in search of osteological 
specimens, and returning from their range of pasture they are 
walking herbariums, bearing specimens in their mane and tail of 
every weed that bears a bur or cockle. But oh, the cows ! If 
held up in a bright day to the sun, don't you think they would be 
semi-transparent ? But he tells us that good milkers are always 
poor ! His cows get what Providence sends them, and very little 
besides, except in winter — then they have a half-peck of corn on ears 
a foot long thrown to them, and they afford lively spectacles of 
animated corn and cob crushers ; never mind, they yield, on -an 
average, three quarts of milk a day ! and that milk yields varieties 
of butter quite astonishing. 

His farm never grows any better, in many respects it gets annu- 
ally worse. After ten years' work on a good soil, while his neigh- 
bors have grown rich, he is just where he started, only his house 
is dirtier, his fences more tottering, his soil poorer, his pride and 
his ignorance greater. And when, at last, he sells out to a Penn- 
sylvanian that reads the Farmers' Cabinet, or to some New Yorker 
with his Cultivator packed up carefully as if it were gold, or to a 
Yankee with his New England Farmer, he goes "off to Missouri, 
thanking Heaven that he's not a book farmer ! 

Unquestionably, there are two sides to this question, and both 
of them extremes, and therefore both of them deficient in science 
and in common-sense. " If men were made according to our no- 
tions, there should not be a silly one alive; but it is otherwise 
ordered, and there is no department of human life in which we do 
not find weak and foolish men. This is true of farming as much 



362 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

as of any other calling. But no one dreams of setting down the 
vocation of agriculture because, like every other, it has its propor- 
tion of stupid men. 

Why, then, should agricultural writers, as a class, be summarily 
rejected because some of them are visionary ? Are we not to be 
allowed our share of fools as well as every other department of 
life ? We insist on our rights. 

A book or a paper never proposes to take the place of a farmer's 
judgment. Not to read at all is bad enough ; but to read, and 
swallow everything without reflection, or discrimination, this is 
even worse. Such a one is not a book-headed but a block-headed 
farmer. Papers are designed to assist. Those who read them must 
select, modify, and act according to their own native judgment. 
So" used, papers answer a double purpose ; they convey a great 
amount of valuable practical information, and then they stir up 
the reader to habits of thought ; they make him more inquisitive, 
more observing, more reasoning, and, therefore, more reasonable. 

Spring Work for Public-Spirited Men. 

Shade Trees. — One of the first things that will require your 
action is the planting of shade trees. Get your neighbors to join 
with you. Agree to do four times as much as your share, and you 
will perhaps then obtain some help. Try to get some more to 
do the same in each street of your village or town. 

Locusts, of course, you will set for immediate shade. They will 
in three years afford you a delightful verdant umbrella as long as 
the street. But maples form a charming row, and the autumnal 
tints of their leaves and the spring flowers add to their beauty. 
They grow quite rapidly, and in six years, if the soil is good and 
the trees properly set, they will begin to cast a decided shadow. 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 363 

Elms are by far the noblest tree that can be set, but they will 
have their own time to grow. It is best then to set them in a row 
of other trees, at about fifty or a hundred feet apart, the interven- 
ing space to be occupied with quicker-growing varieties. 

The beech, buckeye, horse-chestnut, sycamore, chestnut, and 
many others may be employed with advantage. Now, do not let 
your court-house square look any longer so barren. 

Avenues may be lined with rows of trees, but squares and open 
spaces should have them grouped or scattered in small knots and 
parcels in a more natural manner. 

May-weed. — There was never a better time to exterminate this 
villanous, stinking weed than summer-time will be. Just as soon 
as the first blossoms show, " up and at it." Club together in your 
streets and agree to spend one day a-m 'owing. Keep it down thor- 
oughly for one season and it will no longer bedrabble your wife's 
and daughter's dresses, nor fill the air with its pungent stench, nor 
weary the eye with its everlasting white and yellow. 

Sidewalks. — What if your neighbors are lazy ? what if they do 
not care ? Someone ought to see that there are good gravel-walks 
in each village. You can have them in this way : Take your horse 
and cart and make them before your own grounds, and then go on, 
no matter who owns, and when your neighbors see that you have 
public spirit, they will, by-and-by, be ready to help you. But the 
grand way to do nothing is not to lift a finger yourself, and then 
to rail at your fellow-citizens as selfish and devoid of all public 
spirit. 

Protect Public Property. — What if it does concern every- 
body else as much as it does you ? Someone ought to see that the 
fences about every square are kept in repair. Someone ought to 
save the trees from cattle ; someone ought to have things in such 
trim as that the inhabitants can be proud of their own town. Pride 



364 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

is not decent when there is nothing to be proud of ; but when things 
are worthy of it, no man can be decent who is devoid of a proper 
pride. The church, the school-house, fences, trees, bridges, roads, 
public squares, sidewalks — these are things which tell tales about 
people. A stranger, seeking a location, can hardly think well of a 
place in which the distinction between the house and sty are not 
obvious ; in which everyone is lazy when greediness does not ex- 
cite him, and where general indolence leaves no time to think of 
the public good. 

When politicians are on the point of dissolving in the very fer- 
vent heat of their love for the public, it would recall the fainting 
soul quicker than hartshorn or vinegar to ask them — Did you ever 
set out a shade-tree in the street ? Did you ever take an hour's 
pains about your own village ? Have you secured it a lyceum ? 
Have you watched over its schools ? Have you aided in any ar- 
rangements for the relief of the poor ? Have you shown any prac- 
tical zeal for good roads, good bridges, good sidewalks, good school- 
houses, good churches ? Have the young men in your place a 
public library ? 

If the question were put to many distinguished village patriots, 
What have you done for the public good ? — the answer would be : 
" Why, I've talked till I'm hoarse, and an ungrateful public refuses 
me any office by which I may show my love of public affairs in a 
more practical manner." 

It was not, however, until Mr. Beecher, some fourteen 
years ago, located his famous summer retreat at Peeks- 
kill on the Hudson that he was able to fully indulge 
his tastes for horticulture and agriculture. Here he had 
a model farm ; all the choicest and rarest varieties of fruits 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 365 

and flowers, all the latest improvements in stables, hen- 
houses, implements, and systems — an experiment and a 
pastime that cost him an outlay of over $300,000. He 
always passed his summers here, finding relief in the sa- 
lubrious atmosphere from the hay fever which he was 
annually afflicted with after his indisposition in 1850. It 
is hardly necessary to add that the scientific farming he 
pursued made the crops he grew, and the animals he bred, 
cost him more than he could have purchased them for in 
the neighboring markets. No school-boy ever passed a 
more congenial vacation than his summer sojourn here, 
as he always took an active interest in the farm-work. 

He paid the architect, superintended the erection of 
the finest residence of its type on the North River, fur- 
nished it richly with every known convenience and all at- 
tainable luxuries, and paid for every bit of it with money 
made since that time by lecturing from Maine to Califor- 
nia. The house stands on the crest of a lofty hill in 
Peekskill, and is reached by a long and winding drive 
through magnificent trees, which line it on either hand. 
From the broad piazzas can be seen the range of distant 
mountains and the silver thread of the Hudson not far 
off. Peace reigns in all the region round about, and in 
that deliciously restful atmosphere a visitor found the 
venerable pastor on his seventieth birthday, pen in hand, 
preparing data for his lecture duty near at hand. He 
was the picture of health, as with characteristic cor- 



366 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

diality he rose and welcomed his guests to heart and 
home. His workshop and library are the beau-ideal of 
comfort and temptation to duty. Tables, books, electric 
lights, deep Turkish rugs, ample chairs, and all the para- 
phernalia of workmanship abound. He was a most hos- 
pitable host here, and since the annual encampment of 
the State militia in the vicinage, his residence was 
always a Mecca to the members of the Brooklyn regi- 
ments. He always visited the encampment, especially 
of the Brooklyn regiments, and always preached on 
Sundays to his own regiment (the Thirteenth). 

Speaking of the summer home at Peekskill, a visitor, 
writing to the Boston Transcript, alludes to his botanical 
knowledge and love for birds in the following narrative : 

" Mr. Beecher's summer home at Peekskill was a source 
of great delight to him. Here he had a very large and 
choice collection of fruit-trees, flowers, and shrubbery, 
and in walking about the place with friends he would 
tell, without hesitation, the scientific names of each one 
of the numerous varieties, and his technical descriptions 
of them, given in an easy conversational way, were ex- 
ceedingly interesting. Indeed, many of his sermons were 
suggested by what he found in his ' breathing place,' as 
he called his Peekskill home. As an illustration of his 
generous nature may be cited an incident which occurred 
when he first moved to the place. Near the house were 
two or three cherry-trees, from which the fruit was freely 



HORTICULTURIST AND FARMER. 367 

stolen by birds. When his attention was called to this, 
he said : ' I will tell you how we will fix these birds. 
We will go right to work and plant fifteen or twenty 
trees, and then we shall have enough cherries for the 
birds and ourselves, too.' " 

" There is one curious place," said an old friend, " at 
Mr. Beecher's country home in Peekskill which I think 
very few people know anything about. I discovered it 
accidentally one summer, while making a journey on foot 
through the upper part of the State. It was late one 
afternoon that I found myself on a hill overlooking a 
country residence which I afterward discovered was the 
great preacher's. On a level piece of ground between 
me and the house was a high mound of small stones 
which had evidently been carefully placed there, and in 
a few minutes I discovered by whom. A short, fat man, 
clad in a long duster and a sun hat, came out of the 
house and walked over to the pyramid. Then he looked 
around on the ground and presently started off on a brisk 
walk for a distance of fifty yards, when he stooped down, 
and picking up a stone, carried it back to the mound. 
Then he started off after another one and kept that ex- 
ercise up for fifteen minutes, when his journeys brought 
him up to the tree behind which I had placed myself, and 
I saw that it was Mr. Beecher. He recognized me at the 
same time, and started the laugh, in which, of course, I 
joined. Then he took me to his ' monument,' as he 



368 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

called it, and explained that he did all this work for ex- 
ercise. There were numbers of stones in the ground near 
him, but he wouldn't touch those, preferring to get his 
exercise and his ' monument ' at the same time. He 
made it a rule never to carry back more than one stone at 
a time, and when he showed me other similar mounds on 
various portions of his property I saw that he had col- 
lected enough of the small rocks to build a fence around 
his grounds." 

Another friend alludes to a visit to Mr. Beecher at 
Peekskill as follows : " He put on a broad-brimmed felt 
hat and we walked through the lanes on the domain 
where the afternoon sun came golden through the gaps. 
He knew every tree and bird and flower; the very weeds 
and stones wore a new air of companionship on account 
of him. I think the birds came nearer to me during that 
walk than ever before. I could not escape the conscious- 
ness of closely fluttering wings. 

" For Nature, too, has her loves and her hates. Her 
timid songsters are closer to some than to others. Her 
little germs swell and grow with alacrity under certain 
eyes, and the mute beauties of the field do wave their tas- 
selled caps and blow their odorous kisses — only to their 
friends." 



CHAPTER XVII. 

YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 

Causes of Mr. Beecher's Success in the Pulpit. — Originality of Thought 
and Expression. — His Great Power of Will. — How the Yale Lectures 
were Delivered. — Advice to Young Preachers. — Constant Study of 
Nature and Men. — Aims to ennoble Hearers. — Opposed to Perfunc- 
tory Preaching. — External Forms Derided. — " Has the Pulpit lost its 
Power ? " — Why the Question has Arisen. — Personal Emotion. — 
Earnestness, Faith, and Motive Power Essential to Good Preaching. 
— Criticism and Questions Invited. — " Show Sermons the Tempta- 
tion of the Devil." — Preaching Should be adapted to the Audience. 
— Antipathy to Pulpits.— Health very Important. — Extemporaneous 
Preaching. — System Absolutely Necessary. — Sunday-schools the 
Young People's Church. — Temptations of Praise. — Sorrow an Excel- 
lent Teacher. 

Mr. Beecher's success as a preacher undoubtedly arose 
from his marked originality of thought and expression, 
which he was able to exercise on all occasions and fre- 
quently in a most unexpected manner. Another charac- 
teristic of Mr. Beecher was his will-power : having made 
up his mind to succeed, he set himself to rinding out by 
what means he could best attain his object. Taking 
Jesus Christ, and afterward St. Paul and the Apostles, as 
his guides, he studied the methods they had taken to 
achieve success, and the conclusion he arrived at was 



370 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

this : " They were in the habit of looking for a common 
ground on which they and the people could meet ; they 
could get together a number of facts, information essen- 
tial for the people to know, and then bring to bear all 
their earnestness and ability in the presentation of their 
subjects." They knew what they were talking about, and 
they were sincere in their preaching — sincere to the ut- 
most fearlessness. 

With these guides before him, and recognizing also the 
advantages of presentation by parable as shown in the 
Bible, Mr. Beecher set himself the task of imitating their 
methods. His life was a continual study of nature and 
of men, and he acquired, in time, the use of analogy to 
such an extent that he was never at a loss for a picture 
to illustrate any subject on which he might be discours- 
ing. He studied originality, and keeping this object be- 
fore him, he was enabled to store up in his mighty brain 
an inexhaustible fund of information on every topic of 
human interest, to be drawn on as required for the bene- 
fit of his fellow-creatures. 

Through all his writings and sayings this originality 
and minute observation and thought permeates. We 
find it in " Norwood," in his public lectures, wherever he 
opens his mouth or takes up his pen. Numerous records 
have been left that the young minister can take up with 
profit to aid him in his onward course, but perhaps the 
most telling utterances in this respect will be found in 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 37 1 

Mr. Beecher's course of lectures on " Preaching," deliv- 
ered at Yale College at the request of the founder of the 
Lyman Beecher Lectureship on Preaching in 1871. For 
the purposes of this work, it will suffice to take a rapid 
glance at Mr. Beecher's general views on preaching and 
the qualifications of a preacher. 

He starts out with the principle that the real aim of 
a preacher should be the ennobling of his hearers. He 
has no sympathy to extend to perfunctory preachers, or 
those who only took up the duty for the sake of the sal- 
ary they were enabled to earn in the work. But there 
is plenty of encouragement and consolation in his per- 
sonal experiences for such sincere men who are earnest in 
their work and have the well-being of their fellow-creat- 
ures truly at heart. In regard to pomp and ceremony as 
aids to preaching, Mr. Beecher did not consider they were 
conducive to good preaching. He thought that where 
the Church looked for power in external forms preach- 
ing had a tendency to decay. There is as much differ- 
ence, in his estimation, between the man who administers 
ordinances and the man who preaches the Gospel as 
there is between the man who prints a chromo and the 
man who paints the picture which the chromo reproduces. 

Referring to the popular cry of the decay of power in 

the pulpit, Mr. Beecher says : "Has the pulpit lost its 

power ? Is it going to lose it ? Are there agencies of 

instruction in religion dispossessing it of the public ear ? 
16 



3/2 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Was its power the fact that it rose in an ignorant age 
and that it has, therefore, by the very law of develop- 
ment, dug its own funeral and put itself out of power ? 
What is the power of the pulpit primarily ? It is the 
power of preaching ; for though there is something else 
in the minister's life besides the preaching, this is its 
central and characteristic element, and the question may 
therefore be changed — not ' Is the pulpit losing its 
power?' but 'Is preaching losing its power?' Now, I 
hold that preaching is simply the extension of that which 
has existed from the beginning, and in all forms in soci- 
ety, all conditions and institutions, it is the application 
of personal emotion and thought to living people. It is 
not teaching alone, though it may be teaching and should 
be teaching, but it is the power of one living man to lay 
himself, with his thought and his emotion, on the heart 
and intelligence of another living man. The man that 
means men, first and last and all the while — the man 
with strong, emotive, vitalizing life — is the one who will 
succeed. Earnestness, faith, emotive power, are all essen- 
tial attributes to good preaching. 

" I hold that emotion with intellect, emotion as the 
bow and the intellect as the arrow — that is preaching, that 
is the philosophy of it in a figure. A man must have faith, 
or everything falls dead or becomes a mere lectureship. 
There are many things on which a man speaking cannot 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. S73 

be a preacher. I could not gush if I were discussing the 
question of crystallography ; I could not have any great 
emotion to send home if I were dealing with the higher 
mathematics. So, in regard to many kinds of truth, 
there cannot, in the nature of things, be anything that 
goes higher than lecturing. Lecturing is intellectual ex- 
position, legitimate, indispensable in its own place, and 
in regard to its own subjects ; but preaching is something 
higher than that : it is that that is in common between 
the preacher and the hearer; it is that that belongs jointly 
to the sphere of thought and of feeling, and it has in it a 
definite purpose or end in view, which it is seeking by 
thought and by emotion to create in the minds of all 
that are listening to it. It has in it, therefore, the ele- 
ment of thought and the element of emotion, and the 
element of persuasion, and the element of acquiescence in 
the audience, for they act back and fore, the preacher on 
the audience and the audience on the preacher. Now, 
with regard to this, I do not hesitate to say that it is the 
one power that cannot have a parallel, and that, beginning 
in the lowest conditions of social life, the family and the 
friendship and the school, it has its noble development 
in the church of Christ Jesus." 

Whenever and wherever the topic of preaching was 
taken up, Mr. Beecher never failed to impress on his au- 
ditors the expediency and advantage of originality — the 
art of dishing up old matter in new forms and with 



374 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

fresh, vivid illustrations. Characteristic of his sermons 
and lectures were the criticisms and questions which he 
invited his audiences to address to him at the close of his 
addresses, and which he met fearlessly and unflinchingly, 
and with the utmost good-nature. On one occasion, after 
a long series of questions had been hurled at him, he re- 
plied : " Well, I just begin to wake up now. I am not 
afraid of the whole of you. I cannot answer one-half 
the questions you could put. All I have got to say is, I 
would like to see you come and stand here and let me 
put questions to you." 

Show sermons he characterized as the temptation of 
the devil, for " they do not lie in the plane of common, 
true, Christian ministerial work." Not only is a knowl- 
edge of theology essential to the good preacher, but it is 
incumbent on him to bring himself up to the ideal of the 
New Testament. His knowledge must be varied and 
practical, in order to enable him to put himself in sym- 
pathy with his audience, so that the needs and require- 
ments of all can be met. Again Mr. Beechersays: "I 
think that a man going into the midst of an intelligent 
audience does not need to preach in the same way that 
he would if he were going out into the street in the 
midst of a dragonnade^ or among poor and ignorant men. 
The lower down you go in humanity, the more need 
there is of emotion in preaching ; but as you go up, you 
come to a line of people who are not injured by suitable 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 3/$ 

emotion ; but it must be of a more refined kind. They 
demand something more than emotion. There is no 
reason why you should not feed them. And there be 
many that go up still higher. They are not only emo- 
tive and intelligent, but refined. There is a development 
of the element of beauty in their life and thought and 
feeling. The minister ought to preach the Gospel in the 
language in which these folks are born. There is no 
reason why a man should not preach to the philosophical 
in one way, preach to the lawyers in the temple as if 
they understood higher themes. I don't mean by that 
that there is one Gospel for the bottom, and another 
for the ^middle, and another for the top, but that the 
methods by which you bring to the minds of men, the 
doors through which you can enter to their moral con- 
science, are different. The unchangeable elements, love 
to God and love to man, require no speculative, emotive 
outpouring, but adaptation comes in." 

He had a strong antipathy to pulpits, as having a 
tendency to destroy the personal elements which he 
considered were so essential in preaching. To young 
preachers he advised rhetorical drill and a good general 
training to prepare them for their labors. He also laid 
great stress on the general question of health, in con- 
nection with which he recommended the exercise of 
great care in the selection of diet. A healthy-appearing 
preacher, he argued, must necessarily be more acceptable 



376 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

to, and have greater influence over, his audiences than a 
weak, sickly-looking man. 

On the subject of extemporaneous preaching, he said, 
the only part that could be called extemporaneous was 
the external form ; the matter must be the result of pre- 
vious research and study. Prayer he considered a great 
adjunct to preaching, and, indeed, its secret of strength. 
The prayer-meeting was a great aid to the pastor, and 
besides helping to bring the people together, and devel- 
oping power in the congregation, it helped the pastor to 
a knowledge of his people. 

On the question of system, he says : 

" Every man ought to have a system. He dteght to 
have the high Calvinistic view, although it is measured 
the other way, I think. He ought to have the High 
Church view in all the different denominations, and the 
Low Church view, or any of them. Pick out any of 
them, but see to it that you get the heart right, for the 
heart is that element that, when it exists in reality and 
power, corrects all theology practically. It certainly is 
the case that it is the man and his life and his disposition 
that are God's theology in the ministry. And if to this 
you have added corrected intellectual ideas, frameworks, 
and systems, as every thinking man will and must for 
himself, why, all the better, but I tell you that hetero- 
doxy with a right heart under it is better than orthodoxy 
with a malign heart under it. Take the apostolic sieve. 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. tf? 

Paul did not object to eloquence, nor to learning, nor to 
wisdom in any form, but he sifted them all out and kept 
saying to one and another and another, ' Though I have 
the tongues of men and angels and have not love, I am 
nothing.' Sift out that and sift out that. You might 
sift out two-thirds of all the glory among men, and if love 
is left behind you are rich ; and you might have all these 
things, and if love is left out they are no profit to you 
whatever. I am not, therefore, for undenominationalizing 
men. I believe in sects. I believe that the Baptists 
ought to be Baptists simply because they think so, and 
as a man thinketh so is he. I think that the Calvinist 
that is^genuinely misled into that ought to stand by his 
guns ; I think the Presbyterian Church ought to be a 
Presbyterian, and the Methodist Church ought to be a 
Methodist, and the Episcopal Church ought to be Epis- 
copal, and the Congregationalist ought to be Congrega- 
tional ; they, of all men in the world, have reason to be 
proud of their Congregationalism and to stand by it. 
But let not Ephraim vex Judah, let not one mash against 
the other ; love men in that respect. There is one thing 
that belongs to them altogether — love with a pure heart 
fervently and I will trust any misleading doctrine or any 
ordinance or any worship if it stands with the burning 
bush of love showing that the Lord God Almighty is 
present within." 

Sunday-schools he considered the young people's 



378 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

church, and religion should be made joyful to children. 
" There is no danger in religious excitement brought 
about by revivals, any more than there is in political ex- 
citements and business excitements, and the result ob- 
tained is frequently great, and they have a tendency to 
raise the tone of church piety, which is apt to become 
stagnant for want of stirring up." 

Young preachers are warned against the temptation of 
praise. " We all love praise, but praise should follow us 
and never precede us. If you have done right and men 
like it, then it comes under the category of things that 
are of ' good report,' which we are commanded to pon- 
der and to think upon ; but see to it that your aspira- 
tions are not for praise, but for the welfare of man and 
the glory of God, and then if praise comes, well and 
good ; but remember you are going into the midst of fire 
with imflammable garments on you, and there is nothing 
that weakens a man so quickly and is so dangerous to 
him as measuring everything by its relation to its popu- 
larity and to his success in life. It is dangerous even to 
damnableness ! And then he, the man, has his own 
church to try to spoil him. Of course, God raises up 
deacons by whom men are held in sometimes. Often- 
times in this world a thorn in the flesh is one thorn for 
a man's crown by-and-by ; but where there is one dea- 
con that is a vexatious intruder on your individual liberty 
there are a hundred old women or young women that are 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 379 

praising you and flattering you, saying kind things to you 
and seeking to soften you. I believe in softness in the 
heart ; but I do not believe in having a man's head soft. 
That is one of the things you must watch against." 

He comforts those in suffering, sorrow, and disappoint- 
ment, and says : 

" There are many men that are not fit to be preachers 

until they have gone through the path of suffering and 

sorrow. Your mortification and ill-success, instead of 

dissuading you from the Gospel ministry, should lead 

you to say to yourself, " I am being baptized with the 

baptism wherewith He was baptized," and hold on. 

The day is short ; do not be troubled. But oh, my 

young brethren, my heart yearns for you when I look 

out and see into what varied experience you are going 

and what the work has been in this world. I have a 

father's feeling for his sons toward you, and I commit 

you to the care of Him who cared for me, Him who 

loves you and me ; and I say to you, whatever checkered 

way your life may have in it, there is one day that will 

not delay and that will surely come, when you shall go 

into the presence of your Father and my Father and 

there shall come from the multitudes of Heaven greeting 

voices saying to you, " But for you I had not known 

Christ, " glory and immortality shining from their faces 

and reckoning you their high priest under the great High 

Priest. Oh, one hour in heaven will be worth a whole 
*6* 



38O LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

century upon earth, and the commendation of God will 
be to you music that will never end, that will roll on for- 
ever and ever. You have entered or will soon enter the 
most glorious career, if you are fit for it, that can be open 
to men. Do not be tempted by any collateral business ; 
do not be tempted by any praise ; do not be tempted by 
any pride; do not be tempted by any discouragement: 
hold on and work to the end, and then shall come the 
great and glorious outpouring, and one hour in heaven 
will be worth ten thousand years of suffering upon earth. 
" I labored under great disadvantages in coming into the 
Christian ministry. My father was a very eminent the- 
ologian and preacher, and that is enough to beat the head 
in of any son of his that comes after him ; because we are 
all measured by the reputation of the father. I went off 
out of the city. I went out into the country. I really 
expected to live and die in Indiana, and it is in my heart 
to do it yet — I love the State. I went into the woods, 
and on the prairies and everywhere. I had very little to 
say. I had gone through the whole circle of debate and 
theology and so on. I had had a revelation of the nature 
of Christ, and at first it was no more than a start to me. 
It grew, however, more and more, but it was not until I 
had been preaching about four or five years that I had a 
horizon that extended around the whole circle. I 
preached in disquietude and in almost discouragement 
during that time, but at last I came to that feeling — " I 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 38 1 

do believe that I shall now be a preacher." I began to 
see how I could do the thing by preaching that I set out 
to do, and it was a blessed finding out, too. I think it 
was Correggio who, when he made his first and only visit 
to Rome, having been a painter in his own province and 
comparatively unknown, went to see the works of Michael 
Angelo, Titian, and Raphael. All that he said as he 
looked round on them was, " I, too, am a painter." He 
did not say he was equal to them, but he saw in looking 
at their works that he had got hold of the element, and 
that he was a painter. 

" I remember the day when I said I was a preacher. I 
had with tears and sorrow labored to do something that 
would startle men. I sat down and took the Book of 
Acts and analyzed it to see what it was that enabled the 
apostles to produce such effects. I got an idea — it was a 
very imperfect one, it has been corrected since — but I got 
an idea about it, and said : " Now, I will construct on 
these lines not a repetition of this sermon, but I will make 
a sermon that shall be adapted to the state, the want and 
feeling of such communities as there are here." I knocked 
over thirteen men with that sermon. I never had had a 
fish bite before, and the moment that I came home I 
said : " Oh, I have got it ! I have got it ! I know now how 
it is going to be done." Well, I tried it again the next 
time, and I failed totally, and I had more tumbles down 
than I had standings up, but through poor sermons and 



382 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

good sermons I pressed forward until I got to the degree 
of fluency that I have attained. And I want you to un- 
derstand one thing — I do not consider myself a good 
preacher. As God is my judge, my sermons are continu- 
ally condemning me, not in the mere matter of scope and 
thought, but in the soul qualities. I ought to live better 
and be better to enable me to make sermons that shall be 
worthy of my Master, Jesus Christ. Do not be discour- 
aged because you make poor work of preaching at first. 
Go on and try again." 

Mr. Beecher always preferred preaching contrition to 
attrition, and presents the following in support of his 
view : 

" If a man believes in the conscious torment of men, 
eternal, conscious torment in hell, if he ever smiles, if he 
ever gets married, if he ever goes into convivial company 
with jest and joke, he is a monster ! So far as my own 
personal belief is concerned, I work by hope and love, and 
inspire, as far as I can, these as the working forces in my 
people, and not fear — except in those words of fear that 
springs from love — filial fear, and so on ; but, as regards 
the future, I believe that Christ taught simply this : That 
moral character went on from this life into the other, 
bearing the same general tendencies with which men live 
here. In regard to the doctrine of hell as taught by the 
barbaric theologies of the Middle Ages, and as taught by 
the very many barbaric denominations, yet I say that it is 



YALE LECTURES ON PREACHING. 383 

not according to the mind nor the will of the New Testa- 
ment. But I do believe our Lord taught us that living 
selfishly and corruptly here would bear such fruits in the 
life to come as to make it the interest of every man to live 
righteously and rightly. The doctrine preached by sin- 
cere, gentle-minded men wins my respect for them ; it is 
for the rancorous, red-mouthed men that are preaching 
hell fire and damnation, and going home to drink their 
wine and eat their bread and meat — it is for them that I 
have no allowance — because this doctrine is everything — 
it is everything if it be true, and the world ought to be 
in tears, and pleasures ought to be unknown, under such 
circumstances." 



CHAPTER XVIII. 

THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 

Mr. Beecher's Reasons for writing It. — The First Volume published in 
1872. — Its High Literary Character. — Plans for the Work. — Author- 
ities Consulted. — Spirit in which the Author Wrote. — Meeting Objec- 
tions. — The Four Gospels. — Their Critics. — Accepting Their Truth. — 
Ministry of Angels. — The Time Ripe for Christ's Appearance. — The 
Annunciation. — Characters of Mary and Joseph. — Deprecation of 
Protestant Reaction from Mary. — Herod's Hatred. — The Flight into 
Egypt. — Childhood of Jesus. — John and the Voice in the Wilderness. 
— Discussion of Forms of Baptism. — Personal Description of Christ. 
— Miracles of the Four Gospels. — Marriage at Cana. — Judean Minis- 
try. — Lesson at Jacob's Well. — Early Labors in Galilee. — Discussion 
of the Sermon on the Mount. — End of the Volume. — Publication 
Suspended. — New Contract of 1886. 

Public attention has been drawn toward Mr. Beecher's 
" Life of Jesus the Christ " more than to any other of his 
published volumes. During many years he had loved, 
believed in, and taught his people concerning Jesus 
Christ, in whom all the vitality of his faith appeared to 
centre. To him Christ was everything, and he cared to 
know no more. His brother clergymen and his own 
people often asked him to explain his views of Christ. 
He resolved to put himself on record and to write a book 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 385 

that would inspire a deeper interest in the life and sym- 
pathies of his Master. Writing himself about it, Mr. 
Beecher said : 

" I have undertaken to write a life of Jesus the Christ 
in the hope of inspiring a deeper interest in the noble 
Personage of whom those matchless histories, the Gos- 
pels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, are the chief 
authentic memorials. I have endeavored to present 
scenes that occurred two thousand years ago as they 
would appear to modern eyes if the events had taken 
place in our day. . . . Writing in full sympathy 
with the Gospels, as authentic historical documents, and 
with the nature and teachings of the great Personage 
whom they describe, ... I have not invented a 
life of Jesus to suit the critical philosophy of the nine- 
teenth century. The Jesus of the four Evangelists for 
wellnigh two thousand years has exerted a powerful in- 
fluence upon the heart, the understanding, and the im- 
agination of mankind. It is that Jesus, and not a modern 
substitute, whom I have sought to depict, in his life, 
his social relations, his disposition, his deeds and doc- 
trines." . . . 

In the latter part of 1872 Ford & Co. issued the first 
volume — first paying Mr. Beecher $10,000 cash for the 
completed work, yet to be written — and it was at once 
hailed with enthusiasm by eminent men the world around. 
Dr. Storrs, of the Church of the Pilgrims, Brooklyn, 



3B6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

pronounced it to be the " book which the masses of the 
Christian world have been waiting for." The religious 
press, without exception, accorded it a respectful wel- 
come, and scholars and the clergy 7 vied with each other 
in its praise. A well-known English critic said that 
Beecher's " Life of Christ " would be welcome to Chris- 
tians, inquirers, sceptics, infidels, teachers, Bible classes, 
home circles, and intelligent readers of every name. 
That Mr. Beecher had put his best work in the first 
volume of the work, was evident to any critical reader, 
and the publishers gave it a frame worthy of the picture. 
Agents sold the book faster than it could be furnished, 
and that Mr. Beecher would make a fortune as well as 
fame was a moral certainty. 

The author informs us in his preface that he has fol- 
lowed, subject to slight variation, the " Gospel History 
Consolidated," published by Bagster, London, England ; 
Ellicott's " Historical Lectures on the Life of Our Lord 
Jesus Christ ; " and Andrews' " Life of Our Lord upon 
Earth." 

Disclaiming a polemic spirit, and being anxious only to 
produce conviction without controversy, and writing in 
full sympathy with the Gospels as authentic historical 
documents, he has not attempted to show the world what 
the Evangelists ought to have heard and seen, but did 
not, nor what things they did ?iot see or hear, but in their 
simplicity believed that they did. The object of the 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 387 

work is to present scenes in the life of Jesus from the 
chief authentic memorials of the four Evangelists, 
adapted to modern inspection, in the hope of awakening 
a deeper interest in the noble Personage whom all men, 
while differing on every topic connected with the Christ, 
agree in estimating as a good man. 

While the aim of the work prevents any formal dis- 
cussion of the history of the text, the authenticity of the 
several narratives, and the many philosophical questions 
that naturally arise, the author has attentively considered 
whatever has been said, on every side, in the works of 
critical objectors, and has endeavored as far as possible 
so to state the facts as to take away the grounds from 
which the objections were aimed. While the primary 
records remain the same, the habits and requirements of 
plain people render it essential and necessary for the 
life of Christ to be rewritten for each and every age; 
for the Gospels, while peculiarly expressed in a mode 
fitted for universal circulation, are still, owing to the fact 
of their having been written by Jews, and with primary 
reference to certain wants of the age in which the writers 
lived, full of allusions, customs, and beliefs which have 
passed away or become modified. While Truth remains 
always the same, every age has its own style of thought 
and expression, its own needs and necessities, and it is 
for the purpose of meeting these changes of ideas in dif- 
ferent ages that men are ordained to study the Gospel, 



388 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and preach and interpret its meaning, and thus readapt 
the truth, from age to age, to men's ever-renewing wants. 
All critics of the Gospels are reduced to two classes: 

1. Those who believe that the writings of the Evangel- 
ists are authentic historical documents, that they were 
divinely inspired, and that the supernatural elements 
contained in them are real, and to be credited as much 
as any other parts of the history. 

2. Those who deny the inspiration of the Gospels, re- 
garding them as unassisted human productions, filled 
with mistakes and inaccuracies ; especially, as filled with 
superstitions and pretended miracles. " These latter 
critics," says the author, " set aside all traces of the 
supernatural. They feel at liberty to reject all miracles, 
either summarily, with philosophic contempt, or by ex- 
planations as wonderful as the miracles are marvellous. 
In effect, they act as if there could be no evidence except 
that which addresses itself to the material senses. Such 
reasoning chains philosophy to matter, to which state- 
ment many already do not object, but boldly claim that, 
in our present condition, no truth can be known to men 
except that which conforms itself to physical laws. 
There is a step further, and one which must soon be 
taken, if these reasons are logically consistent ; namely, 
to hold that there is no evidence of a God, unless Nat- 
ure be that God. And this is Pantheism, which, being 
interpreted, is Atheism. 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 389 

" We scarcely need to say that we shall take our stand 
with those who accept the New Testament as a collec- 
tion of veritable historical documents, with the record of 
miracles, and with the train of spiritual phenomena, as of 
absolute and literal truth. The miraculous element con- 
stitutes the very nerve-system of the Gospel. To with- 
draw it from credence is to leave the Gospel histories a 
mere shapeless mass of pulp. 

" The ministry of the angels, the mystery of the Divine 
incarnation, and the miracles of our Lord taken away, 
nothing remains to save Jesus, who is acknowledged by 
all men to have been a good man, from the character of 
a gigantic impostor. And even Infidelity would feel 
bereaved in the destruction of Christ's moral character." 

Proceeding on these bases, the author goes on to say 
that the moral fervor and intense spiritual yearnings 
among the best men in Judea had wrought men up to 
such a pitch of spiritual enthusiasm as to prepare them 
in some sort for the need of a new religious education, 
which, while they believed in its advent, was not appar- 
ent to them as regarded its nature and the time and place 
of its coming. 

" The day had come when a new manifestation of God 
was to be made. A God of holiness, a God of power, 
and a God of mercy had been clearly revealed. The 
Divine Spirit was now to be clothed with flesh, subjected 
to the ordinary laws of matter, placed in those conditions 



390 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in which men live, become the subject of care, weariness, 
sorrow, and of death itself." 

But while there was movement and holy ecstasy 
among the heavenly spirits in the anticipation of this 
glorious day, the earth and its dull inhabitants, with the 
exception of the few gifted to discern, could not conceive 
the wonderful dawn that was about to be heralded. In 
turn to Zacharias, to the mother of Jesus, to the shep- 
herds watching their flocks, did the angels announce the 
glad tidings, and the new era opened at Jerusalem. 

" The scene of the Annunciation will always be admir- 
able in literature, even to those who are not disposed to 
accord it any historic value. To announce to an espoused 
virgin that she was to be the mother of a child, out of 
wedlock, by the unconscious working in her of the 
Divine power, would, beforehand, seem inconsistent with 
delicacy. But no person of poetic sensibility can read 
the scene as it is narrated by Luke without admiring its 
sublime purity and serenity. It is not a transaction of 
the lower world of passion. Things most difficult to a 
lower sphere are both easy and beautiful in that atmos- 
phere which, as it were, the angel brought down with 
him." 

In order to appreciate the beauty and truthfulness to 
nature of such a scene, the reader is invited to carry him- 
self back in sympathy to the period of that Jewish 
maiden's life. " The education of a Hebrew woman was 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 391 

far freer than that of women of other Oriental nations. 
She had more personal liberty, a wider scope of intelli- 
gence, than obtained among the Greeks, or even among 
the Romans. But above all, she received a moral edu- 
cation which placed her high above her sisters in other 
lands." To Mary all phenomena of nature were direct 
manifestations of the Lord's will, for at that period the 
path glowed with divine manifestations, and miracles 
blossomed out of every natural law. While to us God 
acts through instruments, to the Hebrew he acted im- 
mediately by his will. No surprise, therefore, was ex- 
perienced by Mary at the coming of the angels ; her only 
surprise being that she should be chosen for a renewal of 
those Divine interpositions in behalf of her people of 
which their history was so full. 

The author, while testifying to the beauty, the rever- 
ence, the affection, and esteem in which the name of 
Mary, the mother of Jesus, has been held for over a 
thousand years, experiences difficulty in speaking of her, 
" both because so little is known of her, and because so 
much has been imagined," and while " the doctors of 
theology have long hesitated to deify the Virgin, art has 
unconsciously raised her to the highest place. . . . 
A sweet and trusting faith in God, childlike simplicity, 
and profound love seem to have formed the nature of 
Mary. She may be accepted as the type of Christian 
motherhood. In this view, and excluding the dogma of 



392 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

her immaculate conception, and still more emphatically 
that of any other participation in divinity than that 
which is common to all, we may receive with pleasure 
the stores of exquisite pictures with which Christian art 
has filled its realm. . . . The Protestant reaction 
from Mary has gone far enough, and on our own grounds 
we may well have our share also in the memory of this 
sweet and noble woman." Speaking of Joseph, the au- 
thor says he is called a just man, and he is known to 
have been humane. " For when he discovered the con- 
dition of his betrothed wife, instead of pressing to its 
full rigor the Jewish law against her, he meant quietly 
and without harm to set her aside. When in a vision he 
learned the truth, he took Mary as his wife." 

With the advent into Jerusalem of the pilgrims of the 
East, " Herod was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him." 
In connection with the guiding star, which was no plane- 
tary conjunction, but a miracle of divine ordination, at- 
tention is directed to " the superiority of spiritual power 
over sensuous, which is the illuminating truth of the 
New Testament." " Miracles," continues the author, 
" are to be accepted boldly or not at all. They are 
jewels, and sparkle with divine light, or they are noth- 
ing." Herod's hatred had to be avoided, and, stirred by 
a divine impulse, Joseph removed his family into Egypt, 
where uncertain tradition has placed their sojourn at 
Mataria, near Leontopolis. 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 393 

The Ministration of Angels is dwelt on by the author 
as a faith that is "peculiarly grateful to the human 
heart." He says : " It is scarcely possible to follow the 
line of development in the animal kingdom, and to wit- 
ness the gradations on the ascending scale, unfolding 
steadily, rank above rank, until man is reached, without 
having the presumption awakened that there are intelli- 
gences above man — creatures which rise as much above 
him as he above the inferior animals. When the Word 
of God announces the ministration of angels, records their 
early visits to this planet, represents them as bending 
over the race in benevolent sympathy, bearing warnings, 
consolations, and messages of wisdom, the heart receives 
the doctrine even against the caution of a sceptical rea- 
son. . . . We could not imagine the advent stripped 
of its angelic lore. The dawn without a twilight, the 
sun without clouds of silver and gold, the morning on the 
fields without dew-diamonds — but not the Saviour with- 
out his angels." 

With the doctrinal theory of the divine and human 
nature of Jesus, the author is at variance, arguing that 
the beauty and preciousness of Christ's earthly life con- 
sisted in its being a true divine life, " a presentation to us, 
in forms that we can comprehend, of the very thoughts, 
feelings, and actions of God when placed in our condition 
in this mortal life. To insert two natures is to dissolve 
the charm." 



I 



394 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

In treating of the childhood of Jesus, the author avoids 
discussion of the suppositions relating to his brothers and 
sisters beyond stating that they may have been the chil- 
dren of Joseph by a former marriage ; or they may have 
been adopted ; or they may have been his cousins ; or 
they may have been the children of Joseph and Mary. 

It is sufficient that the child Jesus grew up and waxed 
strong in the company of other children, and then at the 
age of twelve his parents find him " in the temple, sit- 
ting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them and 
asking them questions." From the reply to his mother, 
" Wist ye not that I must be about my Father's busi- 
ness ? " it is plain that " he was conscious of the nature 
that was in him, and that strong impulses urged him to 
disclose his power. It is therefore very significant, and 
not the least of the signs of divinity, that he ruled his 
spirit, and dwelt at home in unmurmuring expectation." 

The beauty of Nazareth and its environs affords ample 
opportunity for the exercise of the author's ingenious pen 
in picturesque description. 

In the treatment of John and his Voice in the Wilder- 
ness, no significance is attached to his baptism with water, 
beyond the fact that it was a symbolic act, signifying 
that one had risen to a higher moral condition. John's 
own explanation was clear and explicit : " I baptize you 
with water unto repentance." John's mission was criti- 
cised by the Sanhedrim priestly questioners, and the ef- 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 395 

feet of his reply was without doubt an appeal from Ritual 
to conscience. " He came home to men with direct and 
personal appeal, and refused the old forms and sacred 
channels of instruction ; and when asked by the proper 
authorities for his credentials, he gave his name, A Voice 
in the Wilderness, as. if he owed no obligation to Jerusa- 
lem, but only to nature and to God." 

The long silence is ended, and Jesus, walking in the 
footsteps of his people, " that in all things he might be 
like unto his brethren," is baptized by John in the Jor- 
dan ; and instantly a Voice spake from out of heaven, 
" This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased " 
(Matt. iii. 17). At every step the disclosure of the life 
of Jesus was a surprise, and " the mystery of that Divine 
Spirit which possessed the Saviour, the mystery of forty 
day's conflict in such a soul, the mystery of the nature 
and power of Satan, the mystery of the three final forms 
into which the Temptation resolved itself — these are be- 
yond our reach. They compass and shroud the scene 
with a kind of supernatural gloom. The best solution 
we give to the difficulties will cast but a twilight upon 
the scene." 

In following out the life of Jesus, we are not to take 
with us the conception of a formidable being, terrible in 
holiness, but we must clothe him in imagination with 
traits that made little children run to him. 

A chapter is devoted to the personal appearance of the 
*7 



396 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Christ, and another to the outlook at the time of the 
commencement of his mission, with references to the 
Pharisees and the Sadducees, and their respective 
schools. 

" If Jesus came to found a church, never were actions 
so at variance with purposes. There are no recorded in- 
structions to this end. He remained in the full com- 
munion of the Jewish Church to the last. Nor did his 
disciples or apostles dream of leaving the church of their 
fathers. . . . The captivity is drawing to a close. 
The Jerusalem of the Spirit is descending, adorned as a 
bride for the bridegroom. The new life in God is 
gathering disciples. They are finding one another. Not 
disdaining outward helps, they are learning that the 
Spirit alone is essential. All creeds, churches, institu- 
tions, customs, ordinances, are but steps upon which the 
Christian plants his foot, that they may help him to 
ascend to the perfect liberty in Christ Jesus." 

The first step of Jesus, in his ministry, was a return 
home to his mother, and from this we are led to the 
marriage at Cana, with a minute description of the scene 
of the feast, and the miracle of the changing of the water 
into wine ; in connection with which, the author argues 
" that the wine created by our Lord answered to the fer- 
mented wine of the country would never have been 
doubted, if the exigencies of a modern and most benefi- 
cent reformation had not created a strong but unwise dis- 



THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 397 

position to do away with the undoubted example of our 
Lord." Although the motive of the doubt was good, it has 
failed to satisfy the best scholars. The reply of Jesus to 
his mother, interpreted according to the language of to- 
day, might imply a rebuke as well as a refusal ; but inter- 
preted through the impression produced on his mother, it 
was neither refusal nor rebuke, " for she acted as one who 
had asked and obtained a favor." 

The few disciples who had accompanied Jesus were 
drawn to him by the miracle at Cana with renewed ad- 
miration, and soon afterward he went down to Caper- 
naum with his disciples, and at this time Simon Peter 
and his brother Andrew were called ; and then we have 
recorded other miracles, such as the healing of the demo- 
niac, the paralytic, etc. 

In the First Judean Ministry, Baptism, and the dis- 
putes thereon among the disciples, are again discussed, and 
the author remarks that on this question " there came 
near being two sects. And Jesus seeing the danger, not 
only left the neighborhood, but ceased baptizing." 

We have then the Lesson at Jacob's Well and the ap- 
peal of Jesus to the Samaritan woman, expressive of his 
sympathy for mankind, and the tenderest compassion for 
those who have sinned and stumbled. 

In the Early Labors in Galilee, we are attracted chiefly 
by Jesus expounding the lessons of the Law and the 
Prophets in the synagogue, and the tumult thereafter, 



398 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

when " Passing through the midst of them, he went his 
way ; " and the healing of the^sick man on the Sabbath- 
day, and the collision with the Pharisees on account of 
his work on that day, whereon the principle is laid down, 
" The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the 
Sabbath. 11 

A year and a half after the baptism of Jesus, we have 
a Time of Joy, when he returned into Galilee, and " he 
taught in their synagogues, being glorified of all." 

From The Sermon on the Mount and The Beatitudes, 
we arrive at The Beginning of the Conflict, His steps 
being followed by an enthusiastic multitude, the Temple 
party lurking around, determined to resist the reforma- 
tion and destroy the reformer, but restrained for a time 
by His wonderful miracles and the power of His teaching. 
Around the Sea of Galilee the discourses of Jesus grow 
deeper and richer, and although he had preached the 
Kingdom of Heaven from the first, that theme now seems 
to become his special subject of discourse, indicative of 
which we have eight parables. Political influences were 
now at work to destroy him, but " Every political party 
has one or two sensitive tests. If a man is sound or 
harmless in respect to them, he is regarded as safe." 

With the doctrine of immortality, as expounded by 
Jesus, and his numerous parables on the Kingdom of 
Heaven, the first volume is brought to a close. 

"The Voice ceased. The crowd disappeared. The 






THE LIFE OF CHRIST. 399 

light that had sparkled along the waters and fired the 
distant hills went out. . . . With the darkness came 
forgetfulness, leaving but a faint memory of the Voice or 
its teachings, as of a wind whispering among the fickle 
reeds." 

The Beecher-Tilton scandal which culminated in the 
great trial stopped the sale of the first volume — in the 
expressive language of Samuel Wilkinson, " The Life of 
Christ was knocked higher than a kite." Litigation 
followed, and the second volume remained unwritten un- 
til 1886, when Mr. Beechermade a contract with Charles 
L. Webster & Co. to complete the work, and also to 
write his autobiography. Nothing had been done upon 
the latter, but the Life of Christ was so nearly complete 
at the time of Mr. Beecher's death that it can easily be 
finished by another's hand. 



CHAPTER XIX. 

THE GREAT SCANDAL. 

Tilton a Reporter in 185 1. — Attached to The Independent. — His Domestic 
Troubles. — Interviews and Correspondence. — The Tripartite Agree- 
ment. — " Our Mutual Friend."— ^The Church Investigates. — Beecher 
Exonerated. — Commencement of the Libel Suit. — Complaint and An- 
swer. — How the Jury stood at the End. — Eminent Counsel on Both 
Sides. — Official Report of the Trial. — Tilton on the Stand. — His 
Remarkable Story for the Prosecution. — Cross-Examination. — His 
Version of the Various Interviews with Beecher. — Mrs. Victoria C. 
Woodhull's Connection with the Case. — Frank Moulton and His 
Testimony. — Other Witnesses for the Plaintiff. — The Prosecution 
rests Its Case. — Rulings of Judge Neilson. 

In 185 1, a bright young stenographer, only sixteen years 
of age, Theodore Tilton by name, came into Plymouth 
Church to take down Mr. Beecher's sermons for publica- 
tion, a practice which was then a novelty. He was en- 
gaged by Henry C. Bowen, one of the founders of the 
church, upon The Independent, of which journal Mr. Bowen 
was a proprietor, and in 1861 he succeeded Mr. Beecher 
as editor-in-chief of the paper. He developed consider- 
able power as a writer and speaker, especially in the anti- 
slavery contest, and gained the warm friendship of Mr. 
Beecher, who regarded him as " one of my boys." Tow- 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 401 

ards 1870 some difference arose between Mr. Bowen, then 
sole proprietor of The Independent, and Mr. Beecher. 
Meanwhile Mr. Tilton's domestic life was not a happy 
one. In December, 1870, Mrs. Tilton left her husband's 
house and sought her mother's protection. Mr. Beecher 
was consulted, and finally counselled a separation, and the 
rupture between Tilton and Mr. Beecher was complete. 
Mr. Tilton obtained possession of his infant child in its 
mother's absence, and then the mother returned to him. 
At this time Mr. Tilton had retired from the editorship 
of The Independent, to which, however, he still continued 
to contribute, and was editor-in-chief of the Brooklyn 
Union, of which Mr. Bowen was one of the proprietors. 
To Mr. Bowen came stories prejudicial to Tilton's moral 
character, and he meditated dismissing him. 

An interview was held on December 26, 1870, in the 
course of which the conversation passed from the im- 
mediate topic to the necessity of frequent notices of Ply- 
mouth Church and its pastor in the Brooklyn Union. 
Tilton objected, and charged Mr. Beecher with " dishon- 
orable conduct toward his wife." Bringing pen and paper, 
Mr. Bowen invited Tilton to write a letter demanding 
that Mr. Beecher resign from Plymouth Church and leave 
The Christian Union. Tilton did so. Mr. Bowen took 
the letter to Mr. Beecher, who read it and said : " This is 
sheer insanity ; this man is crazy." Soon afterward Til- 
ton was dismissed from both the positions which he held. 



402 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

It was now necessary for him to submit evidence against 
Mr. Beecher or to confess himself a slanderer. He sought 
this from his wife. As to what the precise confession then 
obtained from her was the testimony conflicted. The 
letter was two years afterward destroyed. The progress 
of events was not rapid. Mrs. Tilton retracted in Mr. 
Beecher's presence every accusation made against him ; 
Francis D. Moulton appeared as the " mutual friend ; " 
Mr. Beecher made a tumultuous expression of grief and 
shame, of which Mr. Moulton took down a statement ; 
Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher met, and a reconciliation was 
effected. A new paper called The Golden Age was 
started, with Tilton at its head, for which purpose Mr. 
Beecher and friends of Mr. Moulton contributed sums of 
money. 

On April 2, 1872, the " tripartite covenant " between 
Beecher, Bowen, and Tilton was signed, promising silence 
as to the past and good-will for the future. But ugly 
rumors began to be heard. Tilton aided their distribution, 
Mr. Beecher's friends became uneasy, and in 1873 he 
broke silence with a card of denial. Tilton was charged 
in the church with being a slanderer of his pastor, and his 
name was stricken from the rolls. But more was de- 
manded. An ecclesiastical council was called, nominally 
in regard to the irregularity of this proceeding, really to 
make some attempt at an investigation. Its work 
amounted to nothing, except to deepen the uneasy feeling 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 403 

that some great scandal was about to be brought to light. 
Then Tilton, to clear himself, published the Bacon letter, 
the first of the statements preceding the trial, in which he 
quoted from Mr. Beecher's alleged confession of January 
I, 187 1. Mr. Beecher at once took action and demanded 
an investigation, which six well-known members of Ply- 
mouth Church were appointed to conduct. Another ef- 
fort to compromise the matter was made in vain, and at 
last, in August, 1874, four years and more after the wrong 
was charged to have been committed, Tilton brought his 
suit, placing his damages at $100,000. The charge of 
adultery was first publicly preferred in July, 1874, and the 
complaint served in August, when issue was immediately 
joined. The trial was begun in January, 1875. Subjects 
were dealt with extending over five or six years. About 
two hundred and fifty documents were introduced and 
analyzed. More than one hundred different interviews 
were examined into, and in respect to many of them the 
sworn testimony of witnesses was in irreconcilable dis- 
agreement. Printed in small type, the testimony that 
was published filled three thousand foolscap pages, and the 
report of the proceedings would fill four or five large legal 
volumes. Over one hundred and fifty distinct rulings on 
points of law were made by the judge, which were noted 
by the defendant's counsel, and nearly as many questions 
were raised and decided during the defendant's presenta- 
tion of his case. 
17* 



404 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Judge Neilson sat upon the bench. The most eminent 
counsel were employed on either side. For Tilton ap- 
peared Mr. Pryor, a man of wide learning and active 
mind, Mr. Fullerton, a master of the art of cross-ques- 
tioning, and Mr. Beach, a sharp, pithy, and forcible 
speaker. 

Mr. Beecher was represented by Mr. Evarts, who 
gained new laurels as an advocate before a jury ; Austin 
Abbott, distinguished for his legal learning and the pub- 
lications bearing his name, whose foresight and system 
were apparent in the presentation of the defendant's case ; 
Mr. Porter, quick to see and decide upon knotty points ; 
and Mr. Tracy, an effective orator. The positions of the 
persons interested, the differing characteristics of the 
multitudinous witnesses, the crowds of prominent men 
from all parts of the country who packed the court-room 
daily, and the wholesale publicity given by the press, all 
conspired to make this trial a striking and unprecedented 
event. From January until June the lawyers struggled, 
and a curious public gloated over the daily details of the 
great scandal. Then came the summing up on each side 
and the judge's charge. The deliberations of the jury 
continued for eight days. Fifty-two ballots were taken, 
the first and last being nine for Mr. Beecher and, three 
for Tilton. On one ballot the jury stood eleven to one, 
and on another seven to five, in favor of Mr. Beecher. 

After the close of this trial the matter was taken up 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 405 

by the Grand Jury, which called Mr. Beecher as a wit- 
ness and found an indictment against Francis D. Moul- 
ton for libel. The District Attorney, however, never 
brought the case to trial, and after he had officially indi- 
cated this decision by entering a nolle prosequi, Moulton 
brought a suit against Mr. Beecher for malicious prose- 
cution. Mr. Beecher's counsel defended him vigorously, 
and Moulton abandoned his suit. Questions then arose 
respecting the regularity of the proceedings in Plymouth 
Church by which Mr. Beecher had been acquitted, and 
a council of Congregational churches and ministers, said 
to be the largest that ever assembled, was called to ad- 
vise with Plymouth Church respecting its proceedings. 
This council did not undertake a direct examination of 
the charges. It simply examined into the history of the 
action of Plymouth Church, and in this inquiry spent 
nearly a week. The result was that Christian fellowship 
was extended to Mr. Beecher, the confidence of the 
council in his integrity was affirmed, and a tribunal of 
eminent jurists was appointed to investigate any charges 
that might be laid before them, though none were ever 
laid. 

To many who hated Mr. Beecher for political or theo- 
logical reasons, " the great scandal " was an opportunity 
to despise him for which they were not ungrateful. But 
many who loved him and honored him were obliged to 
feel that the evidence of his own hand convicted him of 



406 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a shameful fault. Guilty or innocent, his was a fearful 
trial, and nothing in his life became him like his bearing 
of it. It was terrible to meet him then upon the street, 
he seemed so bowed and broken ; his once cheerful face 
was so worn and weary with the sorrow of his heart. It 
is a patent fact that never after that did he have the 
weight, the influence, the authority in political or relig- 
ious matters that he had before. It is equally patent 
that the after-thought of many whose judgment was at 
first adverse to him grew less and less so as the years 
went on. And it is certain that few who are not willing; 
to think evil of him for the basest reasons would now 
hesitate to say that whatever may have been his fault, it 
is still true that in the general sweep and tenor of his life 
he was a man devoted to all excellent and useful ideas. 
It is equally certain that there are many others, and a 
much greater number, who have not and who never had 
a doubt of his complete and perfect innocence. And 
furthermore, a very great majority of those who per- 
sonally knew him believed in his innocence, while com- 
paratively few of those who supported the accusation 
were acquainted with Mr. Beecher or had ever exchanged 
a word with him. 

[The following account of the trial has been carefully 
and impartially abridged from the official report.] 

The answer to Mr. Tilton's complaint was a general 
and unqualified denial, and was made August 29, 1874. 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 407 

On the 17th of the following October Judge Neilson, 
Chief Justice of the City Court of Brooklyn, granted an 
order requiring the plaintiff to deliver to the defendant's 
attorneys a statement in writing of the particular times 
and places at which he expected or intended to prove 
that any acts of adultery or criminal intercourse had taken 
place between the defendant and the wife of the plain- 
tiff, and of the particular times and places at which he 
expected or intended to prove that the defendant con- 
fessed any such act of adultery, or show cause why such 
bill of particulars should not be delivered, and why the 
plaintiff should not be precluded from giving evidence 
on the trial of any such acts or confessions not specified 
in such bill of particulars. In the affidavit accompany- 
ing the order attention was called to an alleged confes- 
sion of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton, and it was emphat- 
ically denied that any such confession had ever been made. 
The motion for a bill of particulars was argued at a 
special term of the City Court of Brooklyn, October 30, 
1874, before Chief Justice Neilson, and was denied with- 
out costs. The defendant's attorneys appealed from the 
order of Judge Neilson to the General Term of the City 
Court, and the appeal was heard by Judges Reynolds and 
McCue. The order denying the bill of particulars was 
affirmed, without costs, Judge Reynolds writing the 
opinion. A dissenting opinion was written by Judge 
McCue. 



408 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

From the decision of the General Term an appeal was 
taken to the Court of Appeals, and the decision of the 
General Term of the City Court was reversed. The 
counsel for the defendant then renewed their application 
for a bill of particulars before^Judge McCue, at a Special 
Term of the City Court, December 10, 1874, and the ap- 
plication was granted. From this decision the plaintiff 
appealed to the General Term, and the appeal having 
been heard before Judges Neilson and Reynolds, an order 
was entered on December 29th, reversing Judge McCue's 
order. The order for a bill of particulars having been 
finally refused, the suit went to trial upon Mr. Tilton's 
original complaint, made on August 21, 1874. 

The cause was called on Monday, January 4, 1875, by 
Judge McCue, in the Brooklyn City Court, Part I. Mr. 
Beecher and his counsel were present, but as the case 
was called two hours before the time understood by the 
plaintiff's counsel, Mr. Tilton was not represented, except 
by Mr. Pearsall, whose attendance was accidental. He 
answered to the call, but insisted on an adjournment till the 
next day. Judge McCue, by right of assignment, should 
have held the term, but there had been an implied un- 
derstanding that the case should be sent to Judge Neil- 
son. In the preliminary contests in which Judge McCue 
had granted a bill of particulars, and Judge Neilson had 
denied it, the opinion of both Judges as to the nature of 
the evidence to be admitted on this particular case was 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 409 

foreshadowed. Naturally, Mr. Beecher's counsel were 
anxious that the case should be tried before Judge Mc- 
Cue, while the plaintiff preferred Judge Neilson. It was 
thought on this first day that Judge McCue would pre- 
side, but in accordance with Mr. Pearsall's desire the 
case was adjourned till 1 1 A.M. next day, and the matter 
left undecided. On Tuesday, January 5th, after hearing 
the arguments of the counsel on both sides, and after 
consulting with his associates, Judge McCue decided to 
send the case to the other part of the Court, presided 
over by Judge Neilson. By Friday, January 8th, the 
impanelling of the jury was completed. 

The trial may be said to have really commenced on 
Monday, January nth, with the address of ex-Judge 
Morris. The main points touched on in this address 
were the alleged confessions of Mr. Beecher and Mrs. 
Tilton to Mr. Tilton, Mrs. Moulton, and others; the 
correspondence of Mr. Beecher; the letters of Mrs. Til- 
ton and Mrs. Morse ; the alleged clandestine correspond- 
ence between Mr. Beecher and Mrs. Tilton ; and the cir- 
cumstantial evidence in the efforts which Mr. Beecher 
made for concealment. 

Every seat in the court was occupied, admission being 
allowed by ticket only. All eyes turned to the door-way 
as Mr. Beecher, accompanied by Mrs. Beecher, entered 
the court-room. 

The opening address was closed on the morning of 



410 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

January 13th, and two witnesses were called to the stand 
— Augustus Maverick and Francis D. Moulton. The 
former gave unimportant testimony in relation to Mr. 
Tilton's marriage. Mr. Moulton's testimony related to 
the first meeting between Mr. Tilton and Mr. Beecher at 
his house, the circumstances under which the apology 
was written, and the subsequent interview between him- 
self and Mr. Beecher on the subject of Mrs. Tilton's re- 
traction. He identified the various documents, letters, 
etc., that had become part and parcel of the case, includ- 
ing Mr. Tilton's demand that Mr. Beecher should leave 
the ministry, Mrs. Morse's letter to Mr. Beecher and his 
reply, sundry letters from Mr. Beecher to Mr. Moulton, 
Mrs. Tilton, and what were termed the clandestine letters ; 
also Mr. Beecher's letter to Mr. Moulton, in which Mr. 
Tilton's character was analyzed. At one point in his tes- 
timony the witness stated that Mr. Tilton threatened to 
shoot Mr. Beecher if the resignation of the pastorate 
should be published, because it would disgrace the Liv- 
ingston Street household. The letter of Mrs. Victoria C. 
Woodhull to the World, May 22, 1871, was put in as evi- 
dence, and Mr. Beecher's cards challenging Mrs. Wood- 
hull or anyone else who had letters of his to publish them; 
also the West specifications against Mr. Tilton, and the 
tripartite agreement between Mr. Beecher, Mr. Tilton, 
and Henry C. Bowen. The scenes in the Plymouth con- 
troversy were reviewed, and the effect of the publication 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 411 

of the Bacon letter. It was the object of the plaintiff's 
counsel to present the witness to the jury in the light of Mr. 
Beecher's friend ; whereas, the defence, in the cross-exami- 
nation, introduced him as the school-mate and life-long 
friend of Mr. Tilton. His cross-examination related to his 
acquaintance with Mrs. Woodhull, his accounts with Mr. 
Beecher, his stock in The Golden Age, and other matters. 

Mrs. Martha A. Bradshaw, William F. West, and 
Franklin Woodruff gave evidence, and then Mr. Tilton 
was called. The defence at once objected, on the ground 
that a husband was incompetent to prove his wife's dis- 
honor. The senior counsel, Mr. Evarts, made the ap- 
peal, citing authorities and examples in proof of the 
claim set up. General Roger A. Pryor, of counsel for the 
plaintiff, answered the argument of Mr. Evarts, and was 
followed by Mr. Beach, Mr. Tilton's senior counsel, in 
further proof of the competency of his client to testify. 
Mr. Evarts replied, and Judge Neilson decided that the 
plaintiff was a competent witness, but that he could not 
testify to confidential communications. 

Thereupon, on the morning of the sixteenth day of the 
proceedings, Mr. Tilton was sworn, and proceeded to give 
his evidence. 

He told the story of his early career, and related the 
story of the memorable interviews between himself and 
Mr. Beecher on December 30, 1870, and subsequently. 
The contents of the letter of confession offered from 



412 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

memory by the witness were ruled out. He swore that 
instead of being a bankrupt in 1871 he owned property 
valued at $30,000. He said that on the evening in De- 
cember, 1 870, when Mr. Moulton had brought Mr. Beecher 
to his house, he and Mr. Beecher had a private interview. 
He had then told Mr. Beecher that he might consider 
the letter he had written demanding the former's retire- 
ment from the pulpit as unwritten, and that the inter- 
view was held in the confidence of his wife and in her 
behalf. Mr. Beecher had said that Mr. Moulton had 
shown him no statement, but that he understood in gen- 
eral terms the object of the interview, and he expressed 
his thanks for the withdrawal of the letter. He had 
then informed Mr. Beecher that Mr. Bowen had made a 
statement that " You have been guilty of adulteries with 
numerous members of your congregation ever since your 
Indianapolis pastorate, all down through these twenty- 
five years ; that you are not a safe man to dwell in a 
Christian community; that he knows numerous cases 
where you have shipwrecked the happiness of Christian 
homes ; that he is determined you shall no longer edit 
The Christian Union ; that you shall no longer speak in 
Plymouth Church ; and he says distinctly that you are a 
wolf in the fold and that you should be extirpated." 

Mr. Beecher was amazed that Mr. Bowen should have 
so spoken, as he had appeared to be friendly. Witness in- 
formed Mr. Beecher that after his interview with Mr. 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 413 

Bowen he had narrated the substance of the interview to 
his wife, who was ill, and the intelligence had filled her 
with profound distress, and she had instantly said that he 
was violating the promise he had made her — that he would 
never do Mr. Beecher any harm or ever assist in any ex- 
posure of his secret to the public. She had said that if 
Mr. Bowen made war upon Mr. Beecher, and if he (wit- 
ness) joined in it, everybody sooner or later would know 
the reason, and that would be to her shame and the 
children's, and she could not endure it. Mr. Beecher 
had asked him what he meant by speaking of his wife in 
that way, and he had then read him a copy of Mrs. Til- 
ton's confession, the original of which was in Mr. Moul- 
ton's possession. That confession had been destroyed 
after the tripartite agreement had been signed. 

The next interview he had had with Mr. Beecher was 
about January 3, 1 871, at Mr. Moulton's house. He had 
not then wished to speak to Mr. Beecher, who had ruined 
his wife and broken up his home, but at Mr. Moulton's 
request he said " Good-morning " to him. Mr. Beecher 
said that he did not marvel that witness did not feel like 
speaking to him, but that he felt more dread in being 
spoken to than he could possibly feel repugnance in 
speaking, and that he hoped witness had found it in his 
heart to accept the communication which he had made 
through Mr. Moulton — that he had dictated it out of 
heart-break and anguish. 



414 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

The next interview with Mr. Beecher was in Febru- 
ary, 1872, when Mr. Beecher had called at his house, 
and, in reply to his query, had positively assured him 
that there was no dishonor attaching to the birth of 
the boy Ralph. Mrs. Tilton had come into the room 
at that time, and bursting into tears, had corroborated 
Mr. Beecher. 

The witness described at length his relations with Mrs. 
Woodhull, and stated that Mrs. Woodhull's biography 
had been written by her husband, and that she had brought 
it to him and asked him to rewrite it. He had done so, 
leaving out many extravagant statements, and she had 
been dissatisfied. In June, 1873, there was a stormy in- 
terview between himself and Mr. Moulton, after he had 
learned that Mr. Beecher had expressed an intention to 
resign from Plymouth Church. Witness was very angry, 
and told Mr. Moulton that if Mr. Beecher resigned at 
that time, thus reflecting on the children of witness, he 
would shoot him. The charges of Mr. West against Mr. 
Tilton, as a member of Plymouth Church, for slandering 
the pastor, were very fully reviewed, and in connection 
therewith, a letter written by witness to Samuel E. 
Belcher, as member of the Examining Committee, just 
before the meeting of the Church was held at which Mr. 
Tilton's name was dropped from the rolls, was introduced 
and read. In that letter, witness wrote that he had not 
accused Mr. Beecher falsely. In relation to the Bacon 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 415 

letter, he had met and told Mr. Beecher that Dr. Bacon 
had called him (Mr. Tilton) a knave, and a liar, and a 
creature of Mr. Beecher's magnanimity, and had added 
that Mr. Beecher must deny Dr. Bacon's statements or 
he (witness) would. Mr. Beecher had walked away 
without replying, and they had not met since. In regard 
to any improper conduct on his part with the young girl 
Bessie Turner, or Lizzie McDermott, the witness stated 
emphatically that there was " not a word of truth in it, 
nor a fact for its foundation." 

Mr. Evarts took up the cross-examination of the wit- 
ness, and questioned him closely on the subject of his 
religious views, and whether his change in belief had 
caused his wife much sorrow, and whether there was also 
a great difference in the religious views of witness and 
Mr. Beecher. The political controversies between the 
two men were next taken up, and the events following 
the Cleveland Convention, when witness had severely 
attacked Mr. Beecher, were reviewed. An entire day was 
occupied in reading the correspondence of Mr. and Mrs. 
•Tilton. The relations between Mr. Bowen and Mr. 
Tilton were thoroughly sifted, and a searching inquiry 
was made into the so-called confession of Mrs. Tilton, 
and the copy of it made by Mr.Tilton, both of which, the 
witness said, were destroyed — the first by his wife, the 
copy by himself. The witness was also minutely cross- 
examined as to the subject-matter of the " True Story " 



4l6 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

written by him in the latter part of 1872, subsequent to 
the publication of Mrs. Woodhull's story. 

On his redirect examination, Mr. Tilton was examined 
as to his religious views — his early belief, the cause, time, 
and nature of the change in them ; and finally on the 
question as to how he reconciled the statement that his 
wife loved everything good and hated everything bad 
with the fact that she was charged with adultery, he re- 
plied that he had known his wife since she was ten years 
old, had married her at twenty, and during fifteen years 
of married life he had held her in reverence almost to the 
point of making her an idol ; when she fell, it was the 
necessity of his own heart to find some excuse for her, 
and that excuse he had found in the fact that she had 
been wrapped up in her religious teacher and guide, and 
had surrendered her convictions to him ; she followed his 
lead trustingly, and would go after him like one blinded. 
He thought she had sinned as one in a trance, and she was 
not a free agent, and she would have done her teacher's 
bidding if, like the heathen priest in the Hindoo land, he 
had bade her fling her child into the Ganges or cast her- 
self under the Juggernaut. That was his excuse for his 
wife. The examination of Mr. Tilton ended with the 
twenty-eighth day of the proceedings. 

Mrs. Catherine Carey, who had been nurse in Mr. 
Tilton's family in 1869, was called, and gave evidence 
relative to the conduct of Mr. Beecher with Mrs. Tilton. 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 417 

Mr. George A. Bell, a member of Plymouth Church, 
gave evidence regarding the interview between himself, 
Mr. Halliday, and Mr. Tilton. 

Mr. Evarts made an eloquent appeal for the admittance 
of testimony showing that Mr. Beecher had been called 
to advise in the troubles between Mr. and Mrs. Tilton, 
but he was ruled out. 

Mr. Joseph H. Richards (Mrs. Tilton's brother), Mr. 
Jeremiah P. Robinson, Mr. William M. Marston, and 
Mrs. Francis D. Moulton gave evidence, and on the 
thirty-first day of the proceedings the plaintiff's counsel 
rested their case. 



CHAPTER XX. 

THE GREAT SCANDAL— CONTINUED. 

The Defence Opens. — Mr. Tracy's Appeal. — What He proposed to Prove. 
— The Alleged Confession. — Damaging Evidence against Mr.Tilton. — 
His Alleged Improprieties at Various Places. — Mrs. Woodhull Again. 
— Mr. Moulton's Evidence Contradicted. — Various Witnesses for the 
Defence. — Mr. Beecher on the Stand. — Sensation in Court. — His Oath 
in the New England Form. — His Acquaintance with the Plaintiff. — 
Denial of Improper Conduct. — The Beecher-Moulton-Tilton Interview. 
— Mr. Beecher's Explanation of His Remorse. — Cross-Examination. 
— Mr. Moulton Recalled. — Letter from Mrs. Tilton to Judge Neilson. 
— The Plaintiff Recalled. — The Summing Up by the Defence. — Judge 
Porter and Mr. Evarts. — The Prosecution Follows. — Failure of the 
Jury to Agree. — End of the Six Months' Trial. 

On Wednesday, February 24, 1875, Mr. Tracy made the 
opening address for the defence. He began by tracing 
Mr. Beecher's life and labors from the pastorate in the 
West to the culmination of his popularity in Brooklyn. 
Then he took up the career of Theodore Tilton, speaking 
of him as one who had fallen from an eminence seldom 
attained by men of his age to the very bottom of an 
abyss. With stinging emphasis he referred to the plain- 
tiff as one who, " if he could realize the sad truth that he 
was morally dead, would still rejoice in this post-mortem 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 419 

investigation of his character. But we propose," he 
added, " to dissect him first in the interest of truth and 
bury him afterward in the. interest of decency." 

The evidence of the plaintiff was minutely reviewed, 
and referring to Mrs. Tilton, who, he said, was the true 
defendant in the case, the speaker drew a touching pict- 
ure of her affection for her husband, " giving her whole 
life to him without murmur as to her own self-sacrifice." 
Mr. Tilton's views on marriage and divorce were com- 
mented on, and it was argued that while the plaintiff was 
the editor of a religious newspaper he was an advocate 
of free lust. The alleged trouble in Mr. Tilton's family, 
on account of which Mr. Beecher was said to have ad- 
vised separation, was discussed ; the plaintiff and Mr. 
Moulton were accused of conspiracy and perjury ; Cath- 
erine Carey-Smith was said to be a woman of bad char- 
acter; and Joseph H. Richards' testimony was criticised. 

Referring to the so-called letter of confession of Mrs. 
Tilton, Mr. Tracy remarked on its non-production, and 
stated that the defence would produce an unimpeachable 
witness to prove that Mr. Tilton, after the Woodhull 
publication, had read to the witness what he said was a 
copy of the alleged confession of Mrs. Tilton, and that 
that copy did not contain a charge of adultery ; also that 
Mr. Tilton told the witness that the original confession 
was in the hands of Francis D. Moulton, and this not- 
withstanding Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton had sworn 



420 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

that the confession had been destroyed at the time of the 
signing of the tripartite agreement some months before. 
Mr. Tilton was stigmatized as a blackmailer, and Mr. 
Tracy concluded his address on the thirty-fifth day of 
the proceedings with a long and affecting tribute to the 
Plymouth pastor, and a promise to the jury of evidence 
that would prove him guiltless. 

Edward J. Ovington, the first witness for the defence, 
testified that the plaintiff had told him that his wife 
would say anything for her husband. Rufus E. Holmes 
testified to improprieties of the plaintiff at Winsted, 
Conn. Mrs. Ovington related conversations she had 
had with the Tiltons, and stated that Mrs. Tilton had 
denied to her that Mr. Beecher had offered her any im- 
propriety. Mrs. Sarah C. D. Putnam gave evidence of 
the devotion of Mrs. Tilton to her husband, and Mr. 
Tilton's strictures on the church, and his waning faith in 
Mr. Beecher's powers. Samuel E. Belcher and Mr. 
McKelway testified to the statements made by Mr. Til- 
ton concerning the charge against Mr. Beecher. Then 
followed testimony concerning the plaintiff's relations 
with Mrs. Woodhull, one witness testifying that the 
Woodhull scandal had been discussed in Mr. Tilton's 
presence before its publication. 

The tripartite covenant was explained by Samuel 
Wilkinson ; Mr. Moulton's evidence was contradicted in 
many instances by Mr. Archibald Baxter, who stated 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 421 

that in various conversations between them Mr. 
Moulton had declared Mr. Beecher to be innocent. 
Reuben W. Ropes, Abner H. Davis, Edward A. Biden, 
William B. Barber, and Charles H. Caldwell swore to 
Mr. Moulton's denial of the Woodhull story about Mr. 
Beecher and Mrs. Tilton. Several witnesses testified to 
Mr. Tilton's opinions on marriage and divorce, and Mr. 
Halliday stated that in 1873 Mr. Tilton had said to 
him, " My case against Mr. Beecher is wholly irrespec- 
tive of my wife." Witnesses were examined in the Ply- 
mouth Church Records, and then Miss Bessie Turner 
was called, and testified to Mr. Tilton's eccentricities and 
" moods," his unkindness to his wife, and his attempts on 
herself. Three colored servants of Mrs. Woodhull gave 
evidence of Mr. Tilton's personal relations with that lady 
in support of Mr. Tracy's declaration, in the opening ad- 
dress, that the defence would show conspiracy between 
them to publish the scandal. Evidence was given of Mr. 
Tilton's determination to " smash " his wife and Mr. 
Beecher ; also further evidence in reference to the tri- 
partite agreement, including the evidence of Charles 
Storrs and James Freeland. Several witnesses testified 
generally on the case ; Mr. and Mrs. Robert T. Moore 
impeached Mrs. Carey ; and James Redpath related the 
manner in which he had obtained the " True Story." 

On the fifty-sixth day of the proceedings, April 1, 
1875, Henry Ward Beecher was called and took the oath 



422 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

in the New England form — " I swear by the ever-living 
God." He gave an abridged history of his early life and 
struggles, his subsequent religious and political services, 
his domestic relations, and his intimacy with Mr. Bowen, 
Mr. Tilton, and Mr. Moulton, taking in the period from 
the time of his birth down to December, 1870, when, ac- 
cording to the theory of the defence, the conspiracy 
began. The growth of Plymouth Church from embyro 
to its then magnitude, with between twenty-five hundred 
and three thousand communicants ; the building up of 
The Independent and The Christian Union (the latter 
from a circulation of six hundred to thirty thousand 
copies in a single year) ; the rapid production of thirty- 
five volumes — all these labors were merely mentioned as 
ordinary events. The great help which his wife had 
given him during all the years of their married life was, 
however, more fully dwelt on and emphasized. 

An account of his first acquaintance with Mrs. Tilton 
was given. He had known of her when she was a girl, 
but had had no personal acquaintance with her until her 
marriage to Mr. Tilton, when he had called on her, at her 
husband's request. He stated that in December, 1870, he 
had advised Mrs. Tilton to separate from her husband on 
account of the great unhappiness in the family and her 
treatment by her husband. He denied in the most posi- 
tive and emphatic terms the commission by him of any 
offence against Mr. Tilton or of any crime against his wife. 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 423 

Briefly and emphatically he denied the statements of the 
nurse, Mrs. Carey ; he did not remember ever having seen 
Mr. Richards while on a visit to Mr. Tilton's house ; and 
he denied the truth of Mr. Tilton's allegations concern- 
ing his acts on October 10 and 17, 1868. During his en- 
tire acquaintance with Mrs. Tilton, there had never been 
any undue personal familiarity between that lady and 
himself, nor had he at any time, directly or indirectly, 
solicited improper favors from her. 

The scene with Mr. Bowen on December 26, 1870, was 
rehearsed, and the witness stated that Mr. Bowen, in de- 
livering Mr. Tilton's letter requiring Mr. Beecher's resig- 
nation, had taken pains to represent that he was a volun- 
tary messenger and ignorant of the contents of the letter. 
On reading that letter, Mr. Bowen had been as indig- 
nant as he was himself, and a conversation had followed, 
in which it was revealed that both gentlemen had heard 
of many matters discreditable to Mr. Tilton, and witness 
had emphatically declared to Mr. Bowen that the reten- 
tion of Mr. Tilton on The Independent and U?iion could 
not but be injurious to both journals. This, witness 
stated, was the first and only offence committed against 
Mr. Tilton, and the injury to him professionally which 
followed in his discharge by Mr. Bowen a few days later 
was the only injury the plaintiff had received, although 
witness was led at the time of the signing the apology to 
imagine that there were other grounds of complaint. 



424 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

On the night of December 30, 1870, accompanied by 
Mr. Moulton, witness had called on Mr. Tilton, who had 
then withdrawn the letters he had written, and recited to 
witness his troubles with Mr. Bowen ; he had then 
charged witness with abetting in his removal by Mr. 
Bowen, with having superseded him in his family, with 
alienating the affections of his wife, with corrupting his 
wife and teaching her deceitfulness, and finally, with hav- 
ing solicited her to immoral relations. After an objec- 
tion by the plaintiff, the whole conversation with Mrs. 
Tilton was admitted, and the witness described with great 
minuteness how Mrs. Tilton, after hearing Mr. Beecher's 
story of what her husband had told him, had declared 
that " she could not help it ; " that she " had been wor- 
ried out with his importunities ; " and that the charge was 
" not true." 

At his suggestion, but not at his dictation, she had 
then taken a pen and written the letter of retraction, 
and had of her own volition added the postscript, which 
specifically denied the charge of " improper solicitation." 
On December 31st, in an interview at witness' house, 
Mr. Moulton reproached him with having taken an unfair 
advantage in getting a retraction from Mrs. Tilton, and 
he read a letter from her asking that both her confession 
to her husband and her letter of retraction should be re- 
turned, in order that she might destroy them. Mr. 
Moulton assured witness that there would be no further 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 425 

trouble, and on his representations the letter was given 
up. 

In narrating the story of the interview between him- 
self and Mr. Moulton on January 1st, Mr. Beecher de- 
scribed the grief which had overwhelmed him at that time 
as coming from three sources : his sorrow at having spoken 
evil of Mr. Tilton, his remorse at having believed the 
scandalous stories against his friend, and his self-reproach 
when Mr. Moulton had assured him that they were false ; 
and lastly, his mortification and sorrow on coming to the 
conclusion, to which Mr. Moulton's declarations urged 
him, that through his want of foresight and prudence he 
had won the affection of Mrs. Tilton and come between 
her and her husband. Mr. Moulton had suggested that 
if Mr. Tilton could hear him talking in the strain he had 
been talking that evening there would be peace once 
more between them, and he asked permission of witness 
to make a memorandum of what he had said, so that he 
might read it to Mr. Tilton. 

Mr. Moulton had then written some sentences on sepa- 
rate slips of paper, and asked witness to sign what he had 
written, but he refused. Mr. Moulton had then urged 
him to put his name, so as to let Mr. Tilton know that 
it really came from him, and without reading or knowing 
what was on the paper, he had written near the bottom 
of the sheet, " I have intrusted this to Frank Moulton 
in confidence," and had written his name to that separate 



426 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

note. He denied emphatically that anything in the so- 
called letter of contrition was his, beyond that foot-note, 
and that anything he had said resembled or warranted 
the expressions therein contained. Contradictions were 
given to the evidence of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton on 
important particulars, and it was indignantly and em- 
phatically denied that reference had ever been made by 
Mr. Tilton to the offence then charged. In reference to 
the plaintiff's testimony relating to the interview about 
the child Ralph, the witness said that it was a monstrous 
and absolute falsehood that there had been any such con- 
versation, or anything out of which such a conversation 
could be made or imagined. 

The witness then proceeded with an explanation of 
sundry letters and interviews, Mr. Moulton's first sug- 
gestions about money to help out Mr. Tilton, witness' ac- 
quaintance with Mrs. Woodhull, and her attempt to 
blackmail him previous to the publication of the Wood- 
hull scandal. He further stated that until July, 1874, 
he had been ignorant that adultery had been ever re- 
ferred to or charged, and reference was made to at- 
tempts on the part of Mr. Moulton and General But- 
ler to control the Investigating Committee. In his 
cross-examination, when asked whether he anticipated 
sudden death in 1873, the witness said that his fears 
of death were consequent upon periods of depression. 
Counsel for the plaintiff put in an application for a 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 427 

policy of insurance on the life of Mr. Beecher in March, 
1874. 

The re-direct examination followed, and on the sixty- 
ninth day of the proceedings, April 21, 1875, Mr. 
Beecher's testimony was concluded. 

Henry M. Cleveland stated that his business connec- 
tion with The Christian Union and Mr. Beecher had 
ceased after January I, 1874, and he swore that on June 
2, 1873, between eleven and twelve o'clock in the morn- 
ing, he had had an interview with Mr. Beecher at The 
Christian Union office in New York, and Mr. Beecher 
had then directed him to address letters to him in care 
of Bigelow & Kennard in Boston. He did not see Mr. 
Beecher again until the Friday evening of the fol- 
lowing week. The Rev. W. H. H. Murray, of Boston, 
preached in Plymouth Church on the Sunday following 
June 2d, and Mr. Beecher was not present. The ten- 
dency of this evidence was to directly contradict the 
alleged interview between Mrs. Moulton and Mr. Beecher 
on June 2, 1873. 

Mr. Moulton was recalled by the defence fcr cross- 
examination, and was succeeded by Mr. Partridge, the 
former cashier of Woodruff & Robinson, who contra- 
dicted the evidence of the previous witness. General 
Tracy, of counsel for the defence, testified in contradic- 
tion of statements of Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moulton. 

On the seventy-seventh day of the proceedings, a stir 4 
18* 



428 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

was created by Mrs. Tilton standing up in court and de- 
siring that a communication from her should be read. 
She handed the following letter to Judge Neilson : 

"May 3, 1875. 
"JUDGE NEILSON : I ask the privilege from you for a 
few words in my own behalf. I feel very deeply the in- 
justice of my position in the law and before the court 
now sitting ; and while I have understood and respected 
from the beginning Mr. Evarts' principle in the matter, 
yet since your last session I have been so sensible of the 
power of my enemies, that my soul cries out before you, 
and the gentlemen of the jury, that they beware how, 
by a divided verdict, they consign to my children a false 
and irrevocable stain upon their mother! For five years 
past I have been the victim of circumstances most cruel 
and unfortunate ; struggling from time to time only for 
a place to live honorably and truthfully. Released for 
some months from the will by whose power uncon- 
sciously I criminated myself again and again, I declare 
solemnly before you, without fear of man and by faith in 
God, that I am innocent of the crimes charged against 
me. I would like to tell my whole sad story truthfully 
— to acknowledge the frequent falsehoods wrung from 
me by compulsion — though at the same time unwilling 
to reveal the secrets of my married life, which only the 
vital importance of my position makes necessary. I as- 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 429 

sume the entire responsibility of this request, unknown 
to friend or counsel of either side, and await your Honor's 
honorable decision. With great respect, 

" Elizabeth R. Tilton." 

Judge Neilson considered the letter, and sent the lady 
a written reply in which he pointed out the impossibility 
of her request being granted. Mr. Henry C. Bowen was 
called, and gave evidence in rebuttal of Mr. Beecher's 
testimony. The plaintiff was recalled, and gave evidence 
in rebuttal generally of the testimony on the side of the 
defence, and the eighty-fifth day of the proceedings saw 
the termination of the taking of the testimony. 

On May 19, 1875, Judge Porter began the summing 
up for the defence. With emphatic denunciations of 
Mr. Tilton, the learned counsel condemned in strong 
language Mr. Moulton and other witnesses, and cleverly 
contrasted the life and character of the plaintiff and de- 
fendant. Miss Turner's character was extolled, the 
scenes between herself and plaintiff were reviewed, and 
her testimony favorably compared with the statements 
of Mr. Tilton's witnesses. The correspondence between 
Mr. and Mrs. Tilton was carefully gone over, and Henry 
C. Bowen's evidence was analyzed in view of showing 
points of agreement between that evidence and Mr. 
Beecher's. Referring again to Mr. Tilton and Mr. Moul- 
ton, Mr. Tilton was declared to be the master and Mr. 



430 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Moulton the minion. The letter of contrition was ana- 
lyzed, and modes of expression therein declared to be un- 
like those of Mr. Beecher, and several famous phrases were 
ascribed to the pen of Mr. Tilton. Mrs. Moulton was 
declared to have sworn falsely on account of her husband. 

Six days were occupied in the summing up, the evi- 
dence of every witness being carefully dissected and com- 
mented on, the learned counsel concluding with a tribute 
to Judge Neilson, and the belief expressed to the jury 
that the verdict would be one which would gladden the 
hearts of many, and which would illuminate Brooklyn 
Heights • a verdict which would send an electric thrill of 
joy through Christendom. 

Mr. Evarts likewise summed up for the defence. His 
argument commenced on the ninety-second day of the 
proceedings, and ended with the close of the ninety- 
ninth day. 

Mr. Beach commenced his argument for the plaintiff 
on Wednesday, June 9, 1875. He eloquently described 
the feelings of a husband whose wife's honor had been 
stolen away, and referred to the influence that had been 
brought to bear in support of the defendant during the 
trial. " I have seen," said the learned counsel, " the 
zealots and the parasites gathering around Henry Ward 
Beecher in this trial, and shedding their influence both 
in and out of this court in his favor." The foreman of 
the jury was addressed in reference to personal appeals 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 431 

that had been made to him by the counsel for the de- 
fendant, and an earnest appeal was made to the jury to 
decide the case strictly according to their oaths. 

The argument proper was mostly confined to answer- 
ing Judge Porter's summing up for Mr. Beecher. Mr. 
Tilton was eulogized, but the counsel said he would not 
indulge in denunciations of Mr. Beecher. The publica- 
tion of Mrs. Tilton's letters was explained in a way fa- 
vorable to the plaintiff, and various points that had been 
touched upon by Judge Porter were gone over in detail. 
Mr. Beecher was asserted to have been a party to the 
policy of silence. The anticipations of triumph indulged 
in by the defendant's counsel were treated with severe 
denunciation, and in referring to the power possessed by 
the party of the defendant, the orator said that Mr. 
Evarts " had more than the hundred eyes of Argus, more 
than 'the hundred arms of Briareus, and also the gold of 
Midas, which had been placed where it would have the 
best effect." 

There was an excited colloquy between Judge Porter 
and Mr. Beach concerning the treatment of the charge of 
improper proposals, and then Mr. Beach applied himself 
with renewed energy to the sifting of the evidence and a 
review of Mr. Bowen's relations to the case. Mr. Moul- 
ton's conduct was vigorously defended, and the interview 
of December 30th and the alleged confession of Mrs. 
Tilton which had been destroyed were brought under 



432 LIFE AND WORK Of HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

consideration, and the doctrines and sentiments attrib- 
uted to Mr. Beecher in the corruption of Mrs. Tilton were 
minutely set forth. 

The learned counsel agreed with Mr. Evarts unreserv- 
edly in his reverential estimate of the motive, the ability, 
and the success of Mr. Beecher's grand performance in 
England on behalf of the great question of servitude and 
freedom, but with Mr. Evarts' deductions therefrom in re- 
gard to the present issue he was compelled to differ en- 
tirely. Was it possible that they had become so low in 
the administration of justice that they could not pro- 
nounce judgment against great and noble men for fear of 
the scoffs of the aristocracy of England. In that case, 
he begged God to help justice and American institu- 
tions. 

The Woodhull publication was taken up and discussed, 
and it was asserted that Mr. Tilton had no part in that 
publication, nor had the information therein contained 
come from him concerning Mr. Tilton's connection with 
Mrs. Woodhull. Mr. Beach further said that he knew of 
no evidence in the case which tended to show that Mrs. 
Woodhull's character was so bad as to make all associa- 
tion with her disreputable. A tribute of respect was 
paid to Mrs. Beecher's character for her undeviating faith 
in her husband and her actions as a ministering angel to 
him in his hour of suffering and sorrow, and then the 
affirmative portion of the argument was taken up. 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 433 

Mr. Beach censured the attendance in court of Mrs. 
Tilton and Mrs. Beecher, and the alleged theatric exhi- 
bitions and displays on the part of Plymouth Church, as 
all designed to influence in an indirect and insidious 
mode the conclusions of the court. If Mr. Beecher were 
innocent, he would have needed no such trappings or 
aid, but he could have bravely met the accusations with- 
out any of those policies or stratagems. The letters of 
Mrs. Tilton to her husband were considered, their ex- 
pressions analyzed, and their bearings on the relations of 
the parties to the suit shown. That Christianity was in 
any way at stake in the trial was altogether scouted by 
the counsel, and there need be no fear, he said, of the 
consequences of Henry Ward Beecher's fall upon the 
progress of Christian civilization or Christian influence. 

The West charges were gone into, and the alleged evi- 
dence of Mr. Beecher's efforts to suppress the scandal ; 
and in relation to the theory of blackmail, the counsel 
argued that all the evidence and probabilities were against 
such an hypothesis. Mr. Beecher's denial of guilt was un- 
supported, and they had the confronting testimony of 
three witnesses, and of circumstantial evidence. The issue 
of the case was an action by a husband alleging himself 
to have been wronged in his dearest relations against 
the alleged wrong-doer. They did not ask for damages, 
as " Theodore Tilton disdains the idea of touching the 
gold of Henry Ward Beecher." 



434 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

The letters of Retraction and Contrition were analyzed, 
and counsel argued that both were dictated by Mr. 
Beecher, and that similar phrases in both documents 
were identical with expressions in the defendant's early 
works. It was Mr. Beecher's duty to have confessed his 
sin and asked forgiveness of Plymouth Church and the 
Christian world. Bessie Turner's evidence was referred 
to as intrinsically incredible, and as being immaterial so 
far as the vital point of the case was concerned. In the 
closing point of his argument, Mr. Beach called the good 
faith of the jury into question, and declared that he had 
evidence that jurymen had been improperly approached. 
This was met by indignant denials both from the jury 
and the counsel of defendant. 

Continuing, counsel charged Mr. Beecher with perjury, 
and criticised the want of orthodoxy in his sermons ; and 
in concluding he declared that the duty he had had to 
perform had been most unwelcome and painful, and he 
would leave the case in the hands of the jury, filled with 
unaffected admiration and veneration for the magnificent 
genius of the defendant. But rich as the defendant was 
in mental endowments, and prodigal as his labors had 
been, they could shelter no offence against the law. 
" Genius as lofty, learning more rare and profound, could 
not save Bacon. He sinned and fell, and upon his mem- 
ory history has written the epitaph, ' The greatest and the 
meanest of mankind.' " With a final appeal to the jury, 



THE GREAT SCANDAL. 435 

the learned counsel closed his argument on the one hun- 
dred and ninth day of the proceedings. 

On Thursday, June 24, 1875, Judge Neilson delivered 
his charge, which was devoted to the nature and rules of 
evidence, the character and credibility of the witnesses, 
and rules for the guidance of the jury. 

The jury retired, and on the one hundred and twelfth 
day of the proceedings, July 2, 1875, they returned into 
court, and stated their inability to agree on a verdict ; 
whereupon, after receiving the thanks of the court for the 
careful attention they had shown throughout the trial, 
they were discharged. 



CHAPTER XXI. 



HOME-LIFE. 



Mr. Beecher's Domestic Habits. — Early to Bed, Early to Rise. — An After- 
noon Nap. — Reluctant to leave Home. — Plain Fare. — No More 
Nocturnal Suppers. — His Work Hours. — Preparatory Work. — A 
Punctilious Correspondent. — Answers all Letters with his Own Hand. 
— Persevering Industry. — His Old Home on the Heights. — Its Art 
Treasures. — Stuart's Reminiscence.— Beecher's Temperance Principles. 
— Financiering. — Valuable Collection of Steel Engravings. — Descrip- 
tion of His Library and Methods of Work. — An Amateur Bibliophile. 

Mr. Beecher's early training and nature made him a 
very domestic man. He was an early riser, and when not 
prevented by his professional engagements, always retired 
at 10 o'clock. When prevented by his duties from re- 
tiring early, he always took a nap on the sofa in his study 
in the afternoon. He was a great believer in " tired Nat- 
ture's sweet restorer, balmy sleep." When travelling he 
always greatly missed his home surroundings. It was 
his characteristic to never utter complaints, but always 
to adapt himself cheerfully to circumstances. Fre- 
quently called away from home, especially in his early 
days in Brooklyn, he left cheerfully yet reluctantly, par- 
ticularly if not accompanied by his wife, because he knew 




Mrs. HENRY WARD BEECHER 



HOME-LIFE. 439 

he should not be contented until he returned to the 
comforts of his household. 

He preferred plain cooking, and did not have a hearty 
appetite. Until he became corpulent he used to take a 
cold meat supper after preaching or lecturing, but in later 
years he gave this up. He usually passed his mornings 
in his study, engaged on his editorial work or miscella- 
neous writing. He generally answered all his letters 
with his own hands. He was punctilious in his habit 
of answering all letters addressed to him. Sometimes 
he postponed answering those that were not pressing ; the 
pile would accumulate until in a mood of desperation 
he would devote an entire morning to his correspondence. 
He usually wrote out in full his lectures, but he only 
made memoranda for his sermons, generally on Friday 
mornings, but often not until Sunday morning. 

His Sunday morning sermon was generally of a relig- 
ious character, while in the evening he frequently spoke 
upon affairs of contemporaneous import. Often his 
labors would be continued through the afternoon, as he 
was always desirous of getting as much work out of him- 
self as he could. In consequence of his numerous literary 
engagements, he relegated the pastoral work of visiting 
his numerous congregation and the details of the church 
to his assistant. He found little leisure, too, for social 
calling ; though he was always pleased to have his social 
friends visit him in his home. A picture of domesticity 



440 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

always greeted them ; for, the labors of the day over, he 
passed the evening with his family. He always ad- 
dressed Mrs. Beecher as " Mother," and she always 
called him " Father." Playing backgammon was his fa- 
vorite pastime in the family circle. 

His later years were passed in the home of his son on 
Hicks Street, after he gave up his house on Columbia 
Street. All of his children had married and left the pa- 
rental roof, and he wanted to be in his son's family, where 
there were children growing up to recall his own ado- 
lescent days. Another reason assigned for his giving up 
his establishment on Columbia Street was a wish to 
economize in his expenditures. His farm at Peekskill 
was a great expense to him, and there in the summer he 
passed his happiest days of dolce far niente ; his unos- 
tentatious charities drew largely from his income, and 
several years ago he decided to abandon the house on the 
Heights. He never entertained much in the way of 
dinner-giving, though there was always the spare plate at 
his table for the stranger, and generally some guest to 
take it. It was his custom to have friends to breakfast 
with him Sunday morning whom he had invited to his 
pew. A long list of celebrities could be given of those 
who were thus honored. He continued this custom in 
his son's house. While he never took wine himself, or 
smoked, he did not object to others so indulging. 

The late William Stuart used to tell a good story " on 



HOME-LIFE. 441 

himself " of a visit to Mr. Beecher to invite him to at- 
tend a breakfast he was giving to the late Lord Hough- 
ton at Delmonico's, corner of Fourteenth Street and 
Fifth Avenue. The accomplished ex-manager and lit- 
terateur was received by Mr. Beecher in his study on 
the top floor, with a bay-window commanding an ex- 
tensive view of the lower part of New York City, the 
Bay, and the distant Jersey shores. He found Mr. 
Beecher sitting in his shirt-sleeves at a long table, hard 
at work on an editorial for the Independent. Mr. 
Beecher begged a few moments' indulgence until he had 
completed the article, and Mr. Stuart engaged himself in 
viewing the books and pictures in the " workshop " and 
the animated panorama afforded by the window. Mr. 
Beecher cheerfully accepted the invitation, remarking 
that he was familiar with the poems and literary work of 
Richard Moncton Milnes before he became Lord Hough- 
ton the statesman. 

When Mr. Stuart was leaving, Mr. Beecher observed, 
" I do not take any wine and liquor myself, but do not 
object to others imbibing, if they wish to do so." He 
crossed the room to an old-fashioned bureau on the side, 
and opened a drawer, from which bulged forth several 
disused collars and cuffs, newspapers preserved for ref- 
erence, manuscripts, and such-like, and thrusting his arm 
down a corner, drew forth a bottle of what the other 
instantly recognized as vin ordinaire claret. 



442 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Now the ascent here is fatiguing," said Mr. Beecher ; 
" perhaps you will take a glass of this." 

" Thanks — thanks," replied Mr. Stuart, adding, by way 
of emphasizing his declination, " I never touch liquor 
myself." 

Mr. Beecher, in his surprise, restored the bottle to its 
place, and familiarly sitting on the side of the table, ex- 
claimed : 

" You astonish me. How has a man of the world like 
you escaped ? Why, I did not think it possible for a 
man like you to be a temperance man ! I can under- 
stand now how you have preserved your health and 
physique, notwithstanding the late hours you have been 
compelled to keep." 

Mr. Stuart bore the felicitation meekly, merely stating 
that his favorite beverage was buttermilk, whereupon 
Mr. Beecher regretted he had none to give him, stating 
that he also was very fond of it. 

At the breakfast, a few days later, the jovial raconteur 
forgot his temperance declaration, and indulged freely 
in champagne which he had served him in a goblet. 
Mr. Beecher sat by his side, and Stuart observed that 
there were at times pauses in the other's remarks 
which were astonishing in so fluent a speaker. While 
draining a goblet of the "liquid sunshine" he chanced 
to glance at Mr. Beecher, who had paused in the mid- 
dle of a sentence in reply to a query from Lord Hough- 



HOME-LIFE. 443 

ton, and was observing Stuart intently, not to say curi- 
ously. 

" I beg your pardon," said Mr. Beecher, as Mr. 
Stuart placed his goblet on the table — " I beg your par- 
don, but I must have misunderstood you the other day, 
when you said you did not drink anything but butter- 
milk ? " 

" Except at meals," quickly responded Mr. Stuart, re- 
membering for the first time the circumstance. 

In his home on Columbia Street, Mr. Beecher accumu- 
lated a very valuable collection of steel engravings, said 
to be second only to that of the late Charles Sumner. 
These engravings were so numerous that they lined the 
walls along the stairways, and were to be found in all 
parts of the house. The collection was for years his 
hobby. He had a few good oil paintings. He was an 
enthusiastic advocate of the arts of "the beautiful" in 
everything. Of course, flowers were always a prominent 
decoration of his home. He left all the management of 
his household to his wife, always satisfied with whatever 
arrangements she made ; but in his study and library he 
was left supreme, to let books and clippings accumulate 
in piles or lie about in disorder, and in his study or 
library he was always to be found during " work hours." 
When the Columbia Street house was vacated many of 
the treasures were taken to Peekskill. 

Before Mr. Beecher's illness and death, the Rev. Dr. 



444 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Almon Gunnison, pastor of All Souls' Universalist 
Church, Brooklyn, gives the following interesting ac- 
count of the Plymouth pastor's library and methods of 
work : 

" Mr. Beecher early in his career confronted the ques- 
tion whether he should cultivate a mere literary fastidi- 
ousness, surrender himself to the delights of a literary 
career, and so leave behind works that should stand the 
wear and tear of time, or should secure present influence 
at the risk, perhaps, of an ultimate decadence of his 
literary fame. Born as he was, in an age when great re- 
forms clamored for advocates, it could not be possible 
that a man of his intense sympathy for humanity could 
be content with a mere intellectual dilettanteism ; the 
work of to-day was enough, and he cared little for post- 
humous fame. Still, the homage of an intensely active 
intellect has never ceased to crave food, and the books 
have chased one another into his house, until in the old 
home from which he only recently went out they over- 
flowed room after room, taking possession of dining-room 
and bedroom, attic and closet. 

" I had the pleasure, not long before the breaking up of 
Mr. Beecher's old home, of examining under the genial 
guidance of its owner the library of the famous preacher, 
and of gathering from his own lips many facts concerning 
his literary habits. His library comprises perhaps six 
thousand volumes. It is miscellaneous in character, and 



HOME-LIFE. 445 

without special precision of arrangement. It lacks the 
completeness of a collection, but covers with reasonable 
fulness almost every department of thought. The relig- 
ious department, of course, predominates, the varied 
phases of modern religious thought being especially full. 
Physiological books are numerous, while law, science, 
philosophy, history, and political economy are represented 
largely upon the shelves. The intellectual hospitality of 
Mr. Beecher's mind is seen in the fact that on contro- 
verted topics both sides are almost equally well repre- 
sented. One looks in vain to find in the telltale books 
the evidence of partisanship on the part of their owner. 
English literature is largely represented, each period of 
literary development having its masterpieces, while the 
curiosities of literature, old ballads, myths, legends, folk- 
lore, poetry, the old moralists, humorists, quaint writers 
— all are here in this cosmopolitan collection. 

The intense love of Mr. Beecher for living things — ani- 
mals, plants, fishes, and especially birds — would be noticed 
by the casual visitor, even if he were without previous 
knowledge of his tastes in these directions. " Everything 
that has life," he quaintly remarked, " is related to me. 
I am its Dutch uncle." The books on fishes and birds 
were everywhere ; crowded in among the mustiest folios 
of the Fathers were books curiously illuminated, describ- 
ing the habits of the birds, while the flowers and ferns, 
trees and fruit, kept company with the dreariest quartos 

!9 



446 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

and the moth-eaten relics of mediaeval days. It is well 
known that in the earlier years of Mr. Beecher's ministry 
he was an enthusiast in botanical studies, doing some of 
his earliest writing on the subject of floral culture. His 
love of flowers is proverbial, and it will be interesting to 
know, from the evidence given by his books, that the love 
of his youth had not passed away, for side by side with 
the old floral books of his earlier life are the recent pub- 
lications of the press telling the story of the flowers. 

The library is especially rich in the literature of art, 
and the number of illustrated books is very large. Choice 
editions of Hogarth's works ; the very rare " Holy Land," 
by Roberts, the plates of which, by special contract, were 
destroyed after the limited edition had been printed ; 
" Mus6e Francaise ;" Foster's " British Gallery ; " a large 
folio copy of Lodge's " Portraits ; " very many sumptuous 
works on uncut India paper, with artists' proofs; superb 
works on foreign cathedrals, and " Galerie de Florence ; " 
the " Beauties of the Court of Charles II. ; " Mrs. Jame- 
son's larger works ; Ruskin's works, bought as they were 
issued, and since become very valuable; Britton's " Cathe- 
dral Antiquities ; " the "National Portrait Gallery;" Dug- 
dale's " Monasticon," whose possession Mr. Beecher said 
made him feel so proud that he couldn't speak to an old 
acquaintance for a week ; Alderman Boydell's great book 
on the character of Shakespeare, published in 1795, illus- 
trated by Kirk, William Hamilton, Smirke, and other 



HOME-LIFE. 447 

great artists. These are samples of the very large num- 
ber of works of a similar class. 

All the great standard histories of the life of Christ are 
in the collection — French, German, and English ; mono- 
graphs in every tongue ; periods, phases of his life, any- 
thing and everything that could help solve the mystery 
of the Lord's life had an honored place. The favorite 
divines of the great preacher, South, Berkeley, Barrow, 
Butler, and others, are in silent fellowship with the poets 
most esteemed. The great preacher called our attention 
to a well-worn compilation of the early English poets, 
Drummond, Giles, Fletcher, and Daniell, which seemed 
to have been his life-companion. Turning to DanielPs 
poem, "To Lady Margaret," he read it aloud with in- 
comparable elocutionary skill, bringing out, with delicate 
modulation, its finer poetic and literary grace. 

In looking over the library of Mr. Beecher, one could 
easily imagine that he had determined, like Bacon, to 
"take all knowledge for his province." A young lawyer 
could from his shelves select a law library of reasonable 
completeness ; the young medical graduate would feel 
rich with the professional outfit he might obtain, and the 
student in science, philosophy, natural history, botany, 
fishes, buds, and insects would revel here. The key to 
the vast fund of illustration possessed by Mr. Beecher is 
found by even a cursory glance at this strangely diversi- 
fied collection. His intense sympathy with every form 



44-8 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

of life, his quick, almost poetic, appreciation of the 
beauty of the outward world, his intuitive sense of 
humor, have found nutriment in these books, with which 
he has been in life-long communion. He candidly con- 
fesses his indebtedness to Crabbe for his anatomical, and 
to Ruskin for his poetic, observation of nature. Mr. 
Beecher has never been in any sense a collector. 

Though a man of hobbies, he has rarely had any of the 
bibliographical crazes that have unsettled so many men 
of literary promise. Perhaps the nearest he has ever come 
to the dangerous amusement of collecting has been in the 
direction of art. The old house was heavily freighted 
with the fruit of his art saunterings. Walls, drawers, 
cases, portfolios, were loaded with copies of the great 
works of European galleries — original paintings, engrav- 
ings, etchings of rare skill and beauty, though not in 
many cases of great cost. The veteran preacher is a con- 
noisseur of no mean skill. His crude taste in the earlier 
years of his ministry in Brooklyn was trained greatly by 
the influence of one Emile Seitz, a dealer in New York, 
whose friendly offices as instructor he gratefully remem- 
bers. It was his custom to visit the store of this man, 
where he always received cordial welcome, his growing 
taste being aided much by the genial merchant's suggest- 
ive criticism. 

Like all great workers, Mr. Beecher has found recrea- 
tion in studies outside his regular and perhaps legitimate 



HOME-LIFE. 449 

field. At the beginning of his ministry in Indiana, as 
already intimated, his passion was horticulture, and he 
found rest and refreshment in his studies of flowers and 
fruit, his earliest work as an editor being done for the 
columns of an agricultural paper. Another singular fact 
which has been but seldom noticed by the press is his 
peculiar love of gems. He delights in finely polished 
stones, finding rest, when weary, in looking at these 
things. During his memorable war addresses in Eng- 
land, when beset on every side, with every faculty strained 
to its utmost tension, he found peculiar usefulness in two 
rich opals which had been loaned him for the purpose of 
making a selection, by a Glasgow jeweller. In the days 
of his more active ministry he used to have a little box 
filled with unmounted brilliants of every kind, and when 
at his work he felt the need of some calming influence, 
he was wont to spread his treasures before him, and in 
their eternal fires find calm and rest. He used laugh- 
ingly to deride this strange love as a peculiar and sense- 
less whim, but it is not difficult to trace its origin to his 
peculiarly sensitive love of beauty, which finds satisfac- 
tion in that which of all things beautiful has most of 
beauty. 

Among other singular hobbies is a love of rugs. The 
old house used to be filled with them. Of every nation- 
ality, hue, and fabric, covering rooms and halls, matching 
ill or well the other colors as chance might be, but giv- 



450 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

ing an air of most leisurely abandon and cosey comfort. 
Few people suspect that the great preacher is an expert 
in soaps, but such is the case, and the scent of the soap- 
boiler's kettle is as the odors of Araby to him. Toilet 
articles, the mysteries of the perfumer's distillations, all to 
him are as an open book, and the literature of the toilet, 
ancient and modern, is as familiar, and probably quite as 
interesting, to him as the decisions of the Council of 
Trent or the somnolent platitudes of the gnostic heresies. 
One of his last hobbies was for pottery, though he did 
not go very deeply into it, owing to the great pressure 
upon his time. Unlike most men, Mr. Beecher rarely 
outgrew his old loves. The new hobby is added to the 
others, but it does not displace them ; as he quaintly puts 
it, " his recreations are like an irrigating stream, to be cut 
off in one direction, for a time, that it may be turned on 
in another." 

The consideration of Mr. Beecher's literary workshop 
makes appropriate a word or two as to the methods of 
the worker. In a large sense he is a law unto himself, 
and his method is strangely methodless. " It would," 
he says, " ruin any other man, and if what the news- 
papers say is true, it has ruined me." When engaged in 
more careful editorial work, or the task of authorship, he 
reads exhaustively, yet makes but few notes, filling him- 
self full, and then when the mood comes writing with 
tremendous speed. His creative energy works pictori- 



HOME-LIFE. 451 

ally. Even an argument lies in his mind as a picture. 
As illustrative, he instanced the Sea of Galilee in his 
" Life of Christ." He wishes at some time in the prog- 
ress of his work to describe it. Slowly and carefully he 
studies its topography, and all the elements which enter 
into an accurate representation, works his way along its 
shores and over the adjacent hills, goes down the val- 
ley of the Jordan and studies the topography of the 
Dead Sea, and then begins to make the picture in his 
mind, adding here a color, changing there a line, until 
slowly the whole scene, in all its varied colors, paints it- 
self in the vividness of life upon his mind. Thus, when 
in the progress of his work he comes to this, he has but 
to throw the picture upon the page, as the exhibitor 
takes the picture he desires from the box, puts it before 
his lantern, and throws its every line upon the screen. 

One of the most famous of American literary men, a 
friend and associate of Mr. Beecher, once told the writer 
that the great preacher was excelled in the richness of his 
vocabulary by no writer since the days of Shakespeare, 
and that a careful criticism of his writings would con- 
firm that fact. This illustration of his intellectual fecun- 
dity was also narrated : In the " Life of Christ," the 
printers allowed first corrections without charge, but 
subsequent changes were taxable. The publishers paid 
$1,500 for such improvements, the fertile mind of the 
author constantly suggesting new settings to his thought. 



452 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

The sermon-making process is somewhat in defiance of 
accepted methods. In his vest-pocket he carries con- 
stantly a tiny book in which thoughts, impressions, and 
sermon-germs find place. It is a kind of literary scrap- 
bag, in which hints for sermons and editorials lie in sweet 
contiguity with anecdotes, addresses of friends, financial 
and other memoranda. These things are plant-germs, 
points of crystallization, and from every side they begin 
to draw material. The picture forms rapidly within his 
mind, the outlines of it are crudely indicated in his notes, 
and the inspiration of the moment, when with his audi- 
ence before him his speech is set free, supplies the rest. 

As an author, Mr. Beecher may by the number of his 
works published justly rank among the most prolific 
writers. He is the literary father of thirty-five volumes, 
and if the writings published without his sanction should 
be added to the list, the number would increase to over 
fifty. The stress of his times, his intense sympathy with 
the living questions of the hour, have been, perhaps, an 
inevitable hinderance to literary finish and completeness. 
His work has been largely fragmentary, yet he cherishes 
the hope, not without reason, that some of his sermons 
which have touched the unchanging spiritual needs of 
men may have a permanence beyond his own personal 
life and fame. He feels that he has taught the young 
clergy to find God not alone in the Record, but in the 
contemporaneous history of to-day, and that somewhat 



HOME-LIFE. 453 

through his work the imminent presence of the living 
God may be seen and felt. The variety of his writings, 
his mental vigor and originality, his unquestioned spirit- 
ual vision, together with his complete command of all the 
resources of the English language, cannot fail to give him 
a lasting place among the foremost literary workers of 
this period of American history. 

Of his literary tastes Mr. Beecher has himself given an 
idea : 

" I read for three things ; first to know what the world 

has done in the last twenty-four hours, and is about to 

do to-day ; second, for the knowledge which I especially 

want to use in my work ; and thirdly, for what will bring 

my mind into a proper mood. Among the authors 

which I frequently read are De Tocqueville, Matthew 

Arnold, Madame Guyon, and Thomas a Kempis. I 

gather my knowledge of current thought from books and 

periodicals and from conversation with men, from whom 

I get much that cannot be learned in any other way. I 

am a very slow reader. I never read for style. I should 

urge reading history. My study of Milton has given me 

a conception of power and vigor which I otherwise 

should not have had. I got fluency out of Burke very 

largely, and I obtained the sense of abjectives out of 

Barrow, besides the sense of exhaustiveness." 
19* 



CHAPTER XXII. 

PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 

Rev. C. E. Babb.— Early Days in the West.— The "Pepper-Box" 
Church. — Comparative Obscurity until Thirty-five Years Old. — 
Judge Tourgee's Meeting in Boyhood. — Sam Payne's Experiences. — 
Captain W. L. Watson. — Mr. Beecher as Chaplain. — "Our Boys." 
— Nelson Sizer. — Mr. Beecher's Phrenological Development. — His 
Friendship for his Old School-mate. — Dr. Spurzheim. — Dr. E. E. 
Marcy.— College Days. — Rev. S. Giffard Nelson. — Plymouth Bethel. 
— General Horatio C. King. — Mr. Beecher's Ideas about Church 
Music. — Theatre-going. — Private Theatricals. — Soldiers' Home at 
Leavenworth, Kan. — Professor R. W. Raymond. — Mr. Beecher as a 
Lapidary. — Mr. Thomas G. Shearman. — Mr. Beecher's Charity. — His 
Sympathetic and Sensitive Nature. — Mrs. Sarah Cole. — A Reminis- 
cence of Mr. Beecher's First Sermon in Brooklyn. — Allan Forman. — 
Mr. Beecher plays Marbles with the Boys. 

Rev. C. E. Babb, who succeeded to the pastorate of 
the Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis when 
Mr. Beecher was called to the Plymouth Church pulpit, 
furnishes some interesting personal reminiscences. He 
relates that at Lawrenceburg Mr. Beecher preached in a 
church of about fifty members, in a building the seating 
capacity of which was not over one hundred and fifty, 
and he and his young wife lived part of the time, at 
least, in rooms over a store. In September, 1839, fifteen 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 455 

persons seceded from the First Presbyterian Church in 
Indianapolis, on account of their new-school proclivities, 
and formed the Second Presbyterian Church. There 
were no public halls in the young city then, so this little 
band met in an upper room of the county seminary — a 
room into which a hundred people could not have been 
crowded. Here Mr. Beecher preached for a year, during 
which time his congregation built a wooden church that 
would hold almost four hundred people. It had such a 
curious little cupola that it was popularly known as 
" The Pepper-box Church." In this church Mr. Beecher 
preached until September, 1847, when he went to Brook- 
lyn. All this time his salary never exceeded $800 per 
year. During the last two years, four wealthy parish- 
ioners added $50 each as a private donation, and thought 
they were dealing very liberally with their preacher. 
Indianapolis at that time was an inland town with less 
than five thousand inhabitants. It was distant two days 
by " mud wagon " from Cincinnati, and its only attrac- 
tion was that it was the capital of Hoosierdom. It is a 
noteworthy coincidence that the first railroad in Indi- 
ana — the Madison & Indianapolis — was opened on the 
very day that Mr. Beecher left for his new home in 
Brooklyn. As he stood on the depot platform and saw 
the crowds gathering to the celebration, he said : " I had 
no idea that I was so popular. Why, the whole country 
is here to see me off." 



45^ LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

During Mr. Beecher's eight years' pastorate in Indian- 
apolis he took quite as much interest in horticulture as 
in theology. He had a large garden of several acres in 
the suburbs, and cultivated it with his own hands. He 
spent a great deal more time in it than in his study. 
He was very proud of his skill in raising vegetables, and 
would load a wheelbarrow with pie-plant, which was one 
of his specialties, and trundle it down to the market and 
sell it himself, cracking jokes with his customers that 
drew a large crowd around him. He was always indif- 
ferent to appearances. 

Small as Mr. Beecher's church was, it was never 
crowded, except when he roused himself and announced 
some special subject or course of lectures. This he 
would generally do when the Legislature was in session. 
But ordinarily he would read a sermon to a congregation 
of from two hundred and fifty to three hundred, and 
very few of his regular hearers dreamed that they were 
listening to the foremost pulpit orator of the age. One 
Sunday, in Brooklyn, a lawyer who had been one of his 
elders while he was in Indianapolis went to hear him. 
As he came out, the lawyer said : " I heard that very 
sermon in our church at home four years ago. We all 
thought it a good sermon, but had no idea that it was a 
great one. Such is the difference between preaching to 
three hundred people and to three thousand." 

When Mr. Beecher left Indianapolis his church of 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 457 

fifteen members had increased to two hundred and fifty. 
This was the result of the growth of the city and of sev- 
eral old-fashioned revivals. Mr. Beecher's father was a 
noted revivalist, and impressed upon him that this was the 
normal way of building up the church. " To illustrate 
the personal magnetism of the man," said Mr. Babb, " I 
went one day, six months after he left, with an elder of 
the church, to hunt up the stray sheep of the flock. We 
found a woman at the wash-tub in the suburbs. The 

elder said to her : ' Mrs. M , I believe you are a 

member of our church, but I don't see you there very 
often.' The Hoosier dame replied : ' Well, I'll tell you 
just how it is. I heard they had a big meetin' down to 
Beecher's. The neighbors was going ; I went with them. 
I liked Beecher and I j'ined Beecher. But now he's gone 
away, and I don't know who I belong to.'" 

Mr. Beecher was never very ministerial in his deport- 
ment. He did a great many things that severely tried 
the patience and charity of the most pious people in his 
church. And yet he was so frank and genial, and at 
times so spiritual in his preaching, that they could not 
help loving him. There was one venerable mother in 
Israel who used to tell a great deal about him, but she 
would always wind up in some such words as these : 
" Henry did a great many things that troubled me, but, 
after all, I cannot help believing that Henry was a good 
man." 



458 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

When Mr. Beecher went to New York, in May, 1847, 
on the invitation of the American Tract Society to speak 
at its anniversary, he was hardly known in the East. A 
few people had seen the little volume of sermons to 
young men, which was the first book he ever published, 
and knew that he had a certain kind of power ; but he 
had no reputation as an orator. In the old Broadway 
Tabernacle that day, while all the ministers had white 
cravats, he wore a black bombazine stock, and that stock 
had got twisted around so that the buckle was under one 
ear and in plain sight, while his clothes were rusty and 
ill-fitting. Many thought that some farmer from the 
country had got by mistake upon the platform. When 
the chairman announced, " The next speaker is Rev. 
Henry Ward Beecher, of Indianapolis," he stepped to the 
front and said : " I am going to tell you something about 
the devil's colporteurs. I have been watching them for 
years on the Western steamboats. I can go among them 
as you, brethren, could not ; for you see that nobody 
would ever suspect me of being a preacher; " and the vast 
audience looked at that rusty suit and at that bombazine 
stock, and laughed and laughed again. That opening 
sentence established his reputation, and he held his au- 
diences spellbound from that time on. The Taberna- 
cle would be crowded whenever he was announced to 
speak. 

There is a striking contrast between Mr. Beecher's 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 459 

earlier and his later ministry. Being the son of so emi- 
nent a preacher, and himself so highly gifted, his com- 
parative obscurity until he was thirty-five years old is 
remarkable. But no doubt in that garden at Indian- 
apolis he secured the vigorous health which made him 
such a marvel of physical energy and endurance in his 
later years. 

Judge Tourgee relates the following story about Henry 
Ward Beecher and a clever amateur newspaper reporter : 
" Mr. Beecher and I were stopping at the Kennard House, 
in Cleveland. The Plymouth pastor was to preach in the 
city that night. He chanced to have a room right across 
the hall from me. Sam Payne was a reporter on the 
Cleveland Press. He was a green-looking country boy 
who hadn't been on the paper long, and about as rough 
and uncouth a citizen as you could well find. Sam went 
up to interview Beecher. My door was partly open, and 
I saw him go up to Beecher's door and knock. When 
the reverend gentleman opened the door Payne presented 
his card. Henry Ward glanced at it, and said, queru- 
lously : ' No, I can't be interviewed. I am tired and 
busy, and can't be annoyed with any interviewing.' The 
reporter looked at him a moment and replied with dig- 
nity : ' Well, Mr. Beecher, I didn't want to interview 
you. I heard that you were in town, and knew that you 
would feel hurt if a gentleman of my prominence didn't 
call as a matter of courtesy.' Then, with an elaborate 



460 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

bow, he walked away. Beecher didn't say a word, but 
stood and watched him until he went out of sight." 

Judge Tourgee also narrates how he met Mr. Beecher 
when he was a boy in the Berkshire Hills, when he had 
lost his way. The only way out of his predicament was 
to go to some of the houses in sight in the valley, inquire 
his way home, and sneak back ignobly and shamefacedly 
along the highway. 

As he was about to take this course he heard someone 
clambering along the rough pathway at the foot of the 
ledge, nigh a hundred feet below him. Screened by the 
thick laurels, he watched the new-comer's advance, him- 
self undiscovered. He knew Mr. Beecher by sight, and 
knew where the country house which was then his haven 
of rest was situated. He recognized at a glance the 
flushed face and stalwart figure, then in the prime of 
manly strength. His brow was covered with perspira- 
tion, for, besides the rough walk he had taken, he was 
burdened with an armful of trophies he had gathered on 
the way. Just at the point of the cliff a clear spring bub- 
bled out from under a gray, mossy rock. He threw his 
variegated armful down, tossed off his soft hat, and lying 
prone upon the ground, quenched his thirst. Then he 
stood up, threw back his long hair, wiped his brow, gazed 
at the prospect that lay outspread at his feet, sat down 
upon a spur of the rock, and picked up one by one the 
leaves and flowers he had gathered. Then he sat for a 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 461 

long time, silent and unmoving, looking down into the 
quiet valley and off at the hazy hills beyond. The boy 
had overcome his shyness, and was about to descend and 
inquire his way homeward, when he heard the soft full 
tones which stole with such insensible power into every 
ear. Looking down, he saw his companion in the lumi- 
nous solitude kneeling in the midst of the painted leaves 
he had scattered on the dun rock, the bright autumn 
sunshine lighting up the warm brown hair and touching 
with unwonted radiance the soft lines of his placid face 
as he prayed — alone — upon the mountain, with no 
thought that anyone but God could hear. 

The boy listened in amazement. He had been accus- 
tomed to prayer. The family altar was an almost uni- 
versal institution then. Prayer as an act of duty ; prayer 
as a religious rite ; prayer as a religious service — all these 
were familiar things to his consciousness. He even had 
his own ideas about prayer, and when he felt that he had 
been exceptionally bad or had a desire to be exceptionally 
good he had sometimes tried praying on his own ac- 
count, over and above his share in the evening and 
morning devotions. He regarded it as a pretty serious 
business, however, a thing that needed to be done and 
ought by no means to be neglected, and which, if per- 
severed in, brought at length a sort of fervid rapture which 
carried the worshipper into a mystic realm of supernatural 
bliss. But such a prayer as this he had never heard be- 



462 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

fore — indeed, he has never heard such another since.. A 
calm, tender, quivering rhapsody of thankfulness that 
God had made the earth so beautiful. A burst of grati- 
tude for mountain and valley, river and spring, rock and 
brake, sunshine and shadow, tinted leaf and whirring 
pheasant — everything that had gladdened the eye or 
charmed the sense during the autumnal stroll. 

" I have no idea how long he prayed," says the judge. 
" For the first time I thought a prayer too short. I wished 
that he might keep on forever. I had some curious 
fancies during its continuance. Perhaps, as I looked at 
his glowing face and saw his dewy, luminous eyes as it 
concluded, I may be pardoned if I thought of the Mount 
of Transfiguration. I trust there was no sacrilege in it. 
After a while I stole down and timidly asked my way 
home. I felt ashamed of having been an eavesdropper on 
his devotions. He evidently noted it, and to put me at 
my ease asked me if I did not think it was " a pretty 
cradle God had made for his children." He walked 
nearly a mile with me away from his house, which must 
have been three or four miles from our starting-point, to 
make sure that I did not lose my way. I do not remem- 
ber anything he said, but I walked all the way home in a 
sort of delicious dream, full of strange, vague aspirations 
and sweet, tender recollections. Somehow I came to see 
more in nature afterward than I had ever done before, 
and I have never ceased to be grateful that I heard this 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 463 

prayer in the mountain oratory. My relations with him 
were not close enough to justify recalling the incident to 
his memory, and I suppose he died quite unconscious of 
the identity of the uncouth lad whom he that day initi- 
ated, not so much into nature's mysteries, for I was no 
mean woodman even then, but into their mystical rela- 
tion to God the giver and man the happy recipient. It 
is probable he had long since forgotten the trivial inci- 
dent, but for the sweet lesson, in common with many 
thousands, I still remain his grateful debtor." 

Captain W. L. Watson, Company E, Thirteenth Regi- 
ment, N. G. S. N. Y. (of which since February, 1878, 
Mr. Beecher was chaplain, that company being principally 
organized through his efforts), relates some pleasant remi- 
niscences of Mr. Beecher in connection with the regi- 
ment. 

" The furnishing of the company's room, which is the 
finest in Brooklyn," said the captain, " was defrayed en- 
tirely by contributions from prominent members of Ply- 
mouth Church, and from the receipts of a fair held under 
Mrs. Beecher's auspices. Mr. Beecher never failed, on 
any anniversary dinner of the company, to send a com- 
munication to us of good cheer and fellowship. On his 
seventieth birthday the company presented him with a 
chair, and he addressed a very quaint letter to me ac- 
knowledging the gift. He said that he could not enjoy 
the luxury of the chair at present, but some day he 



464 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

would, when old enough, do so with pleasant recollec- 
tions of the source from whence it came. Whenever he 
or Mrs. Beecher sent us an invitation, it was always ad- 
dressed to ' Our Boys,' meaning the company. The last 
time the company met Mr. Beecher was at a fair held 
the latter part of February — just a week before he was 
taken ill — at Plymouth Church. After he had greeted 
us and announced the fact that there was plenty of ice- 
cream, he came up to the table carrying a number of 
packages in his arms, and asked whether there was any 
young man present who would take the packages home 
for him. Immediately several of the men sprung for- 
ward, but Mr. Beecher, with a merry twinkle in his eye, 
motioned them back, clutched the packages more tightly 
in his arms, and said : ' No, you won't ; I meant my home. 
Good-night ! ' " 

Nelson Sizer, Professor of Mental Science in the 
American Institute of Phrenology, in an interesting 
critical estimate of Mr. Beecher's mental qualities from a 
phrenological point of view, said : 

Henry Ward Beecher was a genius. His faculties 
were extraordinarily well balanced, and his physical and 
mental powers were prodigious. His father was brave, 
hardy, and earnest; his mother was a natural poet and 
artist, and he took his fine imagination from her, and his 
thunder and courage from his father. His head was 
twenty-three inches, his body weighed over two hundred 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 465 

and twenty pounds, and fed his brain abundantly, and 
gave him his masterly talent for much and easy work. 
He had the finest quality of brain of any man in the 
United States, and knew how to take care of his body 
and his brain. 

When Dr. Spurzheim came over from Europe to teach 
the new science of phrenology there was much opposition 
to him, and after his death phrenology was fiercely dis- 
cussed and ridiculed all over the country. In Amherst 
College it was sought to demolish the science by getting 
Henry Ward Beecher to take the negative side of the 
debate on the question, " Is Phrenology entitled to the 
name of science ? " But even then, a young student, Mr. 
Beecher was not a superficial man, and he resolved to 
study up the subject. So he sent to Boston by stage for 
# the works of Spurzheim and Combe, intending to post 
himself from the opposition stand-point, but he found so 
much in the books that he asked for more time, and 
finally got the debate postponed two weeks. Then he 
delivered a speech in favor of phrenology that astonished 
the college and the town. 

After the debate, young Beecher asked a class-mate 
named Fowler if he would not like to read his books on 
phrenology. The young man said he would, and from 
that time the name Fowler and Phrenology became 
wedded. Thus it was that Henry Ward Beecher gave 
to science in America one of its most ardent adherents. 



466 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher's chief ability lay in the discussion of 
talent, character, and disposition. In that field his knowl- 
edge of phrenology was the key to his power over men, 
for then he talked directly to faculty, and as he went 
" from grave to gay, from lively to severe," men felt 
touched in their strongest and weakest points, and imag- 
gined that he knew them through and through. 

Mr. Beecher once said to the late Samuel R. Wells : 
" If I were the owner of an island, and had all the books, 
apparatuses, and appliances, tools to cultivate the soil, 
manufacture, cook, and carry on life's affairs in comfort 
and refinement, and on some dark night pirates should 
come and burn my books, musical instruments, works of 
art, furniture, tools and machinery, and leave me the 
land, and the empty barns and house, I should be, in 
respect to the successful carrying on of my affairs, in very % 
much the same plight that I should be as a preacher if 
phrenology, and all that it has taught me of man, his 
character, his wants and his improvement, were blotted 
from my mind." 

On another occasion he said : " All my life long I have 
been in the habit of using phrenology as that which 
solves the practical phenomena of life. I regard it as far 
more useful, practical, and sensible than any other system 
of mental philosophy which has yet been evolved. Cer- 
tainly, phrenology has introduced mental philosophy to 
the common people." 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 467 

Dr. Erastus E. Marcy, a class-mate of Mr. Beecher at 
Amherst, and one of the Amherst Alumni committee to 
attend the funeral, says : 

" I knew Mr. Beecher intimately at college. He im- 
pressed me even at college as a man of great ability and 
remarkable character. He was some years my senior, 
and older than most of his class-mates, perhaps. From 
the first he showed a strong head, and a wonderful abil- 
ity in debating and arguing with and persuading over 
the rest of us to his views. He took a lead, too, in 
athletic sports, and was a live, active fellow in every- 
thing he tried. He had a warm heart, great generosity 
and impulsiveness, humor and wit. He always im- 
pressed me as a noble, large-brained man, with strong 
emotions and quick feelings, though incapable of doing 
a meanness or a wrong. I think even in college we 
looked on him as marked out for a brilliant career. I 
cannot recall now one of a hundred incidents in which he 
showed his generosity and force and eloquence, but there 
were hundreds of them. We admired and loved him. 
In no bad sense, he was the ' popular ' man of the class." 

Rev. S. Giffard Nelson, the pastor of Trinity Baptist 
Church, Brooklyn, a former preacher at Plymouth 
Bethel, says : 

" My relations with Mr. Beecher while preaching at 
Plymouth Bethel were of an incidental kind. Yet there 
was inspiration even in meeting him now and then. He 



468 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

was uniformly kind, and gave me the most valuable hints 
and suggestions. When I went to Plymouth Bethel my 
friends told Mr. Beecher that I was a Baptist. * I have 
no better friends in this country than the Baptists,' said 
Mr. Beecher. And to me afterward he said : ' I like a 
man who holds fast to truth as he sees it, but I am done 
with the controversy with your folks, if I ever had one. 
In fact, that died with Fox and the Anabaptists.' 

" He understood that I clung tenaciously to the prin- 
ciples of my denomination, and in his love of pleasantry, 
once when he came down to christen the ' Bethel babies,' 
as they were called, he turned to me after the ceremony 
and playfully insisted that I should let him do the same 
for me. He thought me a theological baby, I suppose. 

"I recall a conversation I had with him in his own 
parlor before he took his trip West in 1883. He then 
spoke about Plymouth Church and the strange compo- 
sition of its membership. ' I believe,' he said, ' we have 
all denominations in Plymouth Church. We have Con- 
gregationalists, of course, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, 
Methodists, Roman Catholics, or those who have been, 
Baptists, and I know not what others. Some from every 
fold. It saddens me most of all things,' he added, as he 
had said to so many, ' when I think of what will become 
of Plymouth Church after my departure.' He sat, as he 
spoke (it was a very warm day), in his shirt, trousers, and 
stockings, in the midst of portmanteaus and traps that 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 469 

were preparing for his journey, and that he had had brought 
into the parlor for his convenience, I suppose, and as he 
uttered the words he looked down steadily upon the floor, 
and his great eyelids drooped, and the shades crept over 
his face, so eloquent as the interpreter of his emotions." 

General Horatio C. King, alluding to Mr. Beecher's 
fondness of music, says : 

His fondness of music was a special bond of sympa- 
thy with me, and with that faculty he had of winning 
friends to him and making them do his will cheerfully he 
soon had me in harness in the musical work. The church 
had just before expended an unusually large sum for a 
new organ — upward of thirty thousand dollars. While 
it was being put together, Mr. Beecher was as much in- 
terested as a boy with a new toy, now going around the 
workmen, asking questions without number, studying 
the mechanism, cracking jokes on all sides, and finally 
immortalizing the largest of the pipes of the thirty-two- 
foot diapason by crawling through it. He was not so 
large then as in the last few years of his life, but he was 
big enough to fill the great tube and have a pretty hard 
struggle to crawl through. The pipe still bears in lead- 
pencil an inscription of this exploit. 

Mr. Beecher's constant lament was that the then largest 
church organ in America should be shut up all the week 
and heard only on the Sabbath, and then in music ap- 
propriate for the Sabbath-day. So he pressed several of 
20 



470 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

us into the service, and instituted the series of organ con- 
certs, some two hundred in number, which were extended 
through several years. They did more to popularize 
good organ music than anything ever before done. A 
nominal charge for admission was made. The best or- 
ganists were secured, and many times hundreds were un- 
able to gain entrance to the church. He was a constant 
attendant himself, and witnessed with great gratification 
that the example was speedily followed, not only in New 
York and Brooklyn, but throughout the country, so that 
organ recitals in churches of all denominations no longer 
excite comment. Although he could not play any in- 
strument, he had a very good theoretical knowledge of 
the art, and could read ordinary music with some facility. 
His sermons abound in illustrations drawn from music 
and musical instruments, and he never blundered, as 
speakers often do, in their apt application. 

His disregard of the conventionalities of dress and eti- 
quette were especially marked. If he ever owned a dress- 
coat he never brought it out, and gloves were an abhor- 
rence to him, except as a protection against the cold. 
He was as free from ostentation as the humblest mem- 
ber of his congregation, and yet an innate dignity pre- 
served him from undue familiarity. He was never more 
happy than in the household, where he could gather the 
children about him, join in their sports and gambols — 
the most interested child of them all. 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 47 1 

It was the highest enjoyment of the children of larger 
growth to inveigle him into a discussion and ingeniously 
leave him at last to do pretty much all the talking, when 
he would draw from his apparently unlimited storehouse 
of information, interlarding his talk with abundant wit 
and humor, of which the supply seemed to be inexhaust- 
ible. 

In our various plans for amusing the young people we 
were accustomed tt> get up charades, usually without 
much preparation, and into these crude performances he 
entered with as much zest as the youngest of the auditors. 
If he happened to be hit off by some caricature, no one 
enjoyed it more or laughed more heartily than he did. 
His favorite position was on the floor with the children, 
and his presence was also an inspiration to the amateur 
performers, who knew they had in him a most generous 
critic. 

Probably no pastor ever had a more hearty corps of 
workers than he had, and whatever he desired done there 
were always plenty of willing hands to help. Little ac- 
count has ever been made of the almost innumerable 
benefactions made by means of concerts, fairs, teas, read- 
ings, recitations, and similar means by which enjoyment 
was combined with profit. Thousands of hearts have 
been made happy in this way, and to the young espe- 
cially, the church and Sunday-school have always been 
made the most delightful place outside of the family. 



472 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

All of this was somewhat of a revelation to me, who had 
always heard church-going and Sunday-school attendance 
and work held up as a solemn duty ; for he made it a 
pleasure and a delight. 

He was in all relations of life truly great. His re- 
markable self-control surpassed any I have ever known. 
He was complete master of his feelings, and in the 
twenty-two years of my acquaintance with him I have 
never seen him give way to anger, though many times 
he has had ample provocation. His disposition was as 
nearly perfect as it seems to me possible to any human 
being. His forgiving nature was sublime, and I believe 
he did not harbor any ill-feeling even against those who 
had wronged him most. 

Only the week before his death he entered with his 
usual zeal into a scheme for aiding the Soldiers' Home 
at Leavenworth, Kan., to secure a library, as the Govern- 
ment makes no appropriation for that purpose. The 
Governor, Colonel Smith, had made an earnest appeal 
for books to keep the soldiers at the home and away 
from the temptations of the neighboring city. So we 
planned a concert, and Mr. Beecher promised a good 
notice, adding that he proposed to practise what he 
preached and would send at least twenty-five volumes. 
The next day down came two wheelbarrow-loads of ex- 
cellent books from his library, and the congregation also 
liberally increased the donation." 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 473 

Professor Rossiter W. Raymond, who grew up under 
Mr. Beecher's ministrations, says : " Many of his appli- 
cations of science in the service of religion have been 
such as to invite collaboration and assistance from me, 
which I have given, receiving a good deal more than I 
gave. Mr. Beecher used to carry rubies and topazes in 
his pockets. He never included diamonds, as he did 
not like them. Some of the stones belonged to him ; 
some were lent. I have known him to sit for over an 
hour at a time with his head in his hands, simply looking 
into the hearts of these stones. He told me they were 
like flowers to him, only more convenient to carry. 
Some of the most magnificent outbursts of Mr. Beecher's 
eloquence came unaware and suddenly in private conver- 
sation. His words were squandered upon a few, when 
they would have electrified thousands. 

" Though he was passionately fond of Beethoven's 
music, he gave up frequenting the Philharmonic concerts 
because they exhausted him for his Sunday work. He 
regulated his eating and sleeping so that they should 
not interfere with his work. He had a most forgiving 
nature, and he never spoke or wrote unkindly of anyone. 
Once a man behaved so badly to Mr. Beecher that I cut 
him dead. I was angry. For years we did not speak. 
Imagine what I felt one day to see Mr. Beecher going 
down the street with him, arm-in-arm. ' Well,' said I to 
the pastor, ' if you can't cherish your own grudges, how 



474 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

can I cherish them for you.' He laughed, and told me 
to drop it." 

Thomas G. Shearman, one of Mr. Beecher's closest 
friends, and his confidential legal adviser in the Beecher- 
Tilton suit, says : 

"The first thing that struck me about Mr. Beecher, 
when I met him thirty-four years ago for the first time, 
was his wonderful simplicity, his entire absence of selfish- 
ness. I was then a poor boy, and was introduced to him 
by a young man who was not only poor himself, but 
whose acquaintance with Mr. Beecher was very limited. 
Yet he received me in the same manner and with as 
much cordiality as if the introduction had come from 
one of his closest friends. He chatted pleasantly with 
me, and when he discovered that I sought his advice, al- 
though hundreds of people were crowding about anxious 
to get a word with him, he did not cut me short. He 
listened patiently, and with apparent interest, advised me 
carefully, and left it to me to terminate the interview. 
All that I have seen of him since has confirmed my first 
impression that he was the most sympathetic and kind- 
hearted of men. 

One of his chief characteristics was his utter disregard 
for rank, station, or wealth. The rich and poor were 
alike to him, and I may mention an instance of this which 
came under my own observation. At our Friday night 
meetings there was one man who spoke almost every 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 475 

time, fluently and intelligently, and with great fervor. 
He was a stranger to most of us, a poor Scotch pedler, I 
think, and yet Mr. Beecher seemed to pay special atten- 
tion to him, and asked him to speak oftener than any 
member of the congregation. 

I often argued with Mr. Beecher, and yet he never 
took offence. Thoroughly off-hand, frank and open, he 
always spoke his mind, and yet was very careful not to 
hurt the feelings of others. This consideration for others 
was, in fact, something remarkable. He was never care- 
ful, it is true, of what he said, but somehow escaped 
wounding anyone seriously. His keen sense of humor 
was continually finding amusement in the mistakes and 
slips of speech of speakers in the meetings. This, how- 
ever, was never perceptible except through the twinkle 
of an eye or the twitching of the lips, unless the con- 
gregation thoroughly caught the point, and then he 
would give way to the general feeling and make some 
sly, good-natured comment. 

Many people misjudge him because he never visited 
the sick and dying. He never, at least as far as I know, 
undertook any of the technical pastoral work. His rea- 
sons for not doing it were not generally understood. He 
was easily affected by sorrow, sickness, or death, and a 
performance of the technical duties of the church would, 
on account of his over-sympathetic nature, have certain- 
ly overwhelmed him and consumed his vital energies. 



47^ LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Those who knew him best were thoroughly aware of 
this, and although I have had several deaths in my 
family, I never asked him to attend funerals. His nat- 
ure was a sensitive one, and to a certain extent he was 
obliged to harden himself on the outside or he would 
never have been equal to his great work. 

As a preacher he was like an air-plant. His inspira- 
tion was drawn, not from books or study, but from an 
actual observance of and contact with men. The ideas 
he gathered thus he reproduced in dazzling forms. He 
judged that his mission and duty as a preacher were to 
accomplish the best pulpit work possible, and he bent 
everything to this. A great head and a great heart, a 
tender, sympathetic nature, quick perception, and lenient 
judgment — all these enabled him to see gold in mankind 
where others could discover nothing but dross. His very 
presence always struck me as that of a lion with a big 
heart — having power to smite to the earth, but disdain- 
ing to harm even the weakest." 

An old journalist of New York thus relates how he 
first saw Mr. Beecher in 1854: 

" I was then a boy setting type in Gray's printing office, 
Frankfort and Cliff Streets, in this city. The Indepen- 
dent, the Knickerbocker, The Protestant Churchman, and 
other publications were printed there. Mr. Beecher was 
editor of The Independent at that time. Once a week he 
came to the establishment to read his proof-sheets. The 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 477 

proof-room opened directly back of my case. Everything 
said within it was heard by the boys at the row of cases. 
Louis Gaylord Clark, ex-President Roberts of Liberia, 
old Dr. Tyng, and others frequently met Mr. Beecher in 
this room and exchanged the latest stories. There were 
no chestnuts in those days. Clark was excessively funny. 
His yarns were light and trifling, and provoked surface 
laughter. Beecher's stories were told with a gravity and 
a sedateness that gathered all the elements of humor in 
narration, and launched the climax upon the hearer with 
side-splitting suddenness. His vividness of description 
and terseness of phraseology never shone to better ad- 
vantage than when whiling away a social hour in the 
presence of literary friends. 

" I last saw Mr. Beecher at the reception given to David 
Dudley Field on his eightieth birthday. It was at the 
house of his brother Cyrus, near Gramercy Park. The 
parlors were filled with eminent men. Among them 
were Roscoe Conkling, Jay Gould, John Kelly, Stephen 
J. Field, John B. Haskin, George H. Watrous, and a 
host of lesser lights. The greatest attractions were three 
clergymen. One was Mr. Beecher, the second was the 
Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, and the third was Monseign- 
eur Capel. Beecher and Talmage were the centre of 
admiring groups, while the Monseigneur stood in an an- 
gle of the parlor shaking hands with those who had the 
pleasure of an introduction. It was evident that neither 

20* 



478 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Mr. Beecher nor Dr. Talmage knew of the presence of 
the distinguished Roman Catholic divine. The Mon- 
seigneur wore a suit of clerical black, with a lilac-colored 
sash over his shoulders and around his waist. When 
asked whether he wished an introduction to Mr. Beecher, 
he smiled and replied : 

" ' It would be the greatest pleasure of my life. He is 
the one man in America whom I particularly desire to 
meet.' 

" Three minutes later I had Mr. Beecher by the arm. 
I told him that the Monseigneur desired an introduction 
to him. Mr. Beecher's eyes twinkled. 

" ' What's his calibre ? ' he asked, as he moved toward 
the lilac-softened sash. ' And can you tell me whether 
he is loaded for bear or for quail ? ' 

" As the pride of intellectual Brooklyn was presented the 
English priest moved forward and shook both his hands. 

" ' Ah, Mr. Beecher,' said he, ' this is indeed a pleas- 
ure. Do I at last see the world-renowned apostle of 
America ? It has been the ambition of my life. This is 
the proudest moment of my existence.' 

" ' The pleasure is mutual,' Mr. Beecher replied. ' I 
am glad to meet you. Your intellect I have admired, 
but you are a much more handsome man than I had 
imagined.' 

" ' What,' broke in the Monseigneur, with a low laugh, 
- getting jealous of me already ? ' 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 479 

" After further pleasant badinage, Mr. Beecher gravely 
invited Capel to come over to Plymouth Church some 
Sunday and preach to his congregation. 

" ' Beware, Mr. Beecher,' responded the Monseigneur, 
in a seductive tone ; ' this is a day of wonderful possibil- 
ities. I might turn your flock from the error of its ways. 
Some might be converted.' 

" ' If in one hour you can undo what it has taken me 
forty years to develop,' Mr. Beecher said, 'you must be 
a very remarkable man indeed. Come and preach to us. 
It will do you good, and we shall be glad to listen to 
you.' 

" About this time the Rev. Dr. Talmage was intro- 
duced. The Monseigneur had begun to anoint him with 
the oil of flattery, when Mr. Thomas McElrath presented 
Russell Sage. 

" ' He's worth $10,000,000,' were the words whispered in 
the priest's ear, whereupon the man immortalized in 
* Lothair ' turned his back on both Beecher and Talmage, 
and vainly tried to fascinate the big-tailed fox of Wall 
Street." 

Mrs. Sarah Cole, eighty years of age, lives at 248 Adel- 
phi Street, Brooklyn. Her father, John Cole, was the 
first of that name to settle in Brooklyn. He lived with 
his family for thirty years in a house which stood on the 
site of Plymouth Bethel. The family were Episcopali- 
ans, and went to old St. Ann's Church, but Mrs. Sarah 



480 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Cole went to hear the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher deliver 
his first sermon in Plymouth Church, after he had been 
called, and she has a very vivid recollection of it. 

Her memory is excellent and her eyes undimmed in spite 
of her years. She talks and laughs as cheerily as though 
she were a score of years younger, and said to a visitor : 

" I remember well the first sermon that Henry Ward 
Beecher preached in Brooklyn after he had been called. 
The church was crowded ; all the aisles were filled. Mr. 
Beecher took for his text the words, ' Jesus Christ and 
Him crucified.' He was a slim young man of medium 
height. He had long dark hair and very strong features. 
The face was not handsome, but very good. Such oratory 
I never heard in all my life. What he said sounded so new, 
nobody had ever heard anything like it before. It made 
people feel so bright. The Bible was lighted up and 
made plain and real to us. When the service was over 
you ought to have heard people talking as they were going 
out of the doors. They were astonished, and said to each 
other, ' That's preaching for you.' The congregation of St. 
Ann's Church thought we were terrible. They imagined 
we were going to leave the Episcopalians and join Ply- 
mouth Church, but there was no fear of that — we were too 
much attached to Dr. Cutler. We went to hear Mr. 
Beecher quite often, though, and grew to love him very 
much. People didn't know what to make of Mr. Beecher. 
They said he was not orthodox, but those who heard him 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 48 1 

once said he was orthodox enough for them. He never 
put on any airs even in those days. He was very good 
to the poor. 

" I was in his church on the morning the fire started. 
Smoke was coming from some place and filling the room. 
Deacon Howard approached Mr. Beecher, who was in his 
pulpit, and whispered to ask if it would not do better to 
dismiss the congregation. He said, ' Oh, no,' and went 
on with the service. After the service was over they 
hunted out the fire and extinguished it, but the flames 
burst out again and the place burned down. The con- 
gregation got a temporary place while the church was 
being rebuilt. Clergymen and strict church people of 
other denominations thought Beecher was off the track. 
They said he was a Universalist, but he wasn't. He was 
just as liberal then to all other denominations as he was 
when he died. He never said anything against any other 
creed. I've heard him say he would like to sit beside the 
Roman Catholics in heaven. And he not only never 
spoke any harm of others, but he also never thought any 
harm of them. He was the most unsuspicious man I 
ever met. He made the very best of everybody. The 
good which he did was incalculable here. Six years ago 
my sister went out on Sunday morning and came home 
late for dinner. I said : ' Where have you been ? ' ' I've 
been in heaven,' she said. ' How you talk,' said I ; ' your 
dinner has grown cold.' ' What I heard was dinner 



482 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

enough for me,' she said ; ' I was at Plymouth Church 
listening to Mr. Beecher preaching. Oh, he was grand ! '' 
That was the last sermon my sister ever heard. She took 
pneumonia, and was dead in two weeks, but I believe that 
sermon brightened her last days." 

Allan Forman, editor of The Journalist, tells an anec- 
dote charmingly illustrative of the interest Mr. Beecher 
took in young people, and incidentally, of the broad 
quality of his mind, which deemed nothing of kindly no- 
tice too trivial for his remembrance. 

" I was born almost within a stone's-throw of .Mr. 
Beecher's house, in Brooklyn," says Mr. Forman, "and 
among my earliest recollections is that of the kind face of 
the great pastor of the Plymouth Church. Mr. Beecher 
was the friend of every boy in the neighborhood, and 
nothing seemed to please him better than to watch us at 
our games and to have us appeal to him for some decision 
in our childish squabbles. 

" I remember one morning — it must have been twenty 
odd years ago — a crowd' of us youngsters were playing 
marbles not far from Mr. Beecher's house. Mr. Beecher 
was out for his usual morning walk, and when he came to 
us he stopped and stood for some time watching us as we 
snapped the marbles around and yelled at the top of our 
voices. At last he said : ' Now, look here, boys, you 
don't know how to play marbles. You ought to let me 
show you how.' " 



PERSONAL RECOLLECTIONS OF HIS FRIENDS. 483 

" ' Come in ! Give us some points, Mr. Beecher ! ' we 
yelled, and waited with our mouths open and our eyes 
dancing, to see him get down on his knees and win all 
our marbles from us. 

" ' Well, I am going down the street now,' said Mr. 
Beecher, ' but I will come back in a few minutes and we 
will have a good game.' 

" And pretty soon he did come back ; and what made 
us almost jump up and down with joy was that his 
pockets were fairly bulging out with marbles. 

" 'Come on, boys,' he said, and he stooped down and 
started in on a game of c snap in the ring.' 

" Unfortunately for Mr. Beecher's prestige, his hands 
were rather stiff, and it was not long before it was my luck, 
as I was pretty nimble with the marbles, to ' clean him 
out,' so to speak. In fact, when he got away from us he 
didn't have a marble left, for we were playing ' in earnest.' 

"Mr. Beecher took his defeat very good-naturedly, and 
with the smiling remark that ' he guessed he'd have to 
practise a little before he tried it again,' left us. 

" I had forgotten all about the incident, but not very 
long ago I attended a fair at the Plymouth Church with 
my wife, when Mr. Beecher came along and touched Mrs. 
Forman on the shoulder, and pointing to me, said : 
' Mrs. Forman, do you know that I haven't played marbles 
since your husband swindled me out of my whole stock 
when he was a boy.' " 



484 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

When Mr. Beecher was in Chicago a few years ago, a 
reporter of one of the morning papers was assigned by 
his city editor to report a sermon which the divine was 
to preach at Centenary Church. While on his way from 
the church to his office the reporter lost his notes out of 
his pocket. In his desperation the news-gatherer sought 
Mr. Beecher at his rooms, at the Palmer House, and 
begged the divine to help him out of his dilemma. Mr. 
Beecher, who was in bed at the time, arose and, seating 
himself beside the reporter, went over his sermon with 
so much deliberation that the newspaper man was en- 
abled to give his paper the best report printed in the 
city the next morning. This is only one of the many 
courtesies Mr. Beecher showed to reporters. 



CHAPTER XXIII. 

REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 

Fishing with Lampson at Litchfield. — Result of Divine Mercy. — An April 
Fool. — An Old Reporter's Reminiscences. — A Friend to Newspaper 
Men. — Knowing One's Own Country. — The Mood Necessary for 
Work. — The Leather Promissory Note. — Weak Coffee. — The Warm 
Icicle. — A Feast at Waterbury. — Dr. Hall and Mr. Beecher. — Mr. 
Beecher's Humor. — A Total Abstainer at Public Dinners. — Mr. 
Beecher's Visits to Washington. — His Dinner Habits. — A Bridal 
Substitute. — Hon. Willard Bartlett. — Mr. Beecher's Fondness for 
Dogs. — The Prayer for Delivery from Sudden Death. — A Little Boy's 
Compliment. — Last Appearance in Public in New York. — Dr. Tal- 
mage. — Mr. Beecher a Good Swimmer. — The Debating Society. — 
The "Beecher Calendar."— Rev. Frank Russell. —Rev. William M. 
Taylor. — Crossing the East River on the Ice. — Eating Candy like a 
School-boy. — The Railway Lunch- Counter. — Misunderstood in a Ser- 
mon. — Dead Letters. — The Photographs. — The Stomach the Boiler of 
the System. — The Giddy Gusher's Reminiscences. — Mr. Beecher's 
Friendship for Actors. — His Present to Ellen Terry. 

A GOOD story is told of Mr. Beecher when years ago he 
spent a portion of his vacation at Litchfield. It was be- 
fore the war, when the distinction, even in our Northern 
States, was marked between the white man and the col- 
ored man. Mr. Beecher had donned his regimentals, as 
he called them, consisting of high top-boots, a farmer's 



486 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

straw hat, blouse coat, and pants tucked slouchingly in- 
side his boots. Lampson, the whitewashes was of gi- 
gantic form, and as black as the ace of spades. 

Mr. Beecher was in readiness to start for Bantam Lake, 
when Mr. Hollister who was to accompany him, was 
detained on legal business by parties from out of town. 

" Never mind, Hollister," said Mr. Beecher, " I will go 
on alone." 

The first person he met after leaving the Mansion 
House was the black person, Mr. Lampson. 

" See here, my man," said Mr. Beecher, " do you ever 
go fishing ? " 

" Yes, sah." 

" And enjoy it ? " 

" Yes, sah." 

" Well, then, come with me." 

While Lampson was absent for the horse someone told 
him that his companion was no less a personage than the 
great preacher, the Rev. Henry Ward Beecher. Lamp- 
son was awe-stricken. Forgetting to secure the horse, he 
approached Mr. Beecher, hat in hand, and said : 

" Be you Mr. Beecher ? " 

" Yes," laughed the preacher, " but what of that ? " 

" I was sure you had made a mistake, or perhaps you 
are most blind." 

" Not in the least, my man. Come, the sun is getting 
high ; let's be off." 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 487 

Lampson made another stand against occupying the 
same wagon-seat with the great man, but finally all ob- 
stacles were removed, and they started at a rapid pace 
down West Hill. 

The fishing was excellent, and Lampson drew up his 
lines about as rapidly as he could set them. Soon the 
bottom of the boat was well filled with pickerel, roach, 
a few catfish, and one bass. But Mr. Beecher had not 
been successful in making a single haul. 

As Lampson was gathering up the fish, Mr. Beecher 
still sat in the boat and watched him with a serene ex- 
pression upon his face as he said : " Don't tell me that 
the black man is the white man's inferior. Look at the 
spoils of to-day. Which is the better man of the two ? " 
From that day out the colored people of Litchfield had a 
reverence for Mr. Beecher which exceeded that for any 
other earthly human being, and Lampson especially was 
ready always to assert that he was one of the greatest of 
the great men of the age and time. 

When the Lyman Beecher Lectureship in the Yale 
Theological School was established, the distinguished 
son of the great polemic was naturally chosen as the 
first lecturer. This was in 1872, when his intellectual 
and oratorical powers were at their climax, and his fame 
was brightest. Of course, the size of the chapel, which 
was far too small, was the only limit to the size of the 
audiences. It was Mr. Beecher's custom, at the close of 



488 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

every lecture, to submit to a rattling fire of cross-ques- 
tions upon every phase of theological doctrine, of homi- 
letics, and of pastoral work. Professors and students 
were the questioners, and it will readily be believed that 
some of them sought rather to puzzle the witness than 
to elucidate the subject. But Mr. Beecher never hesi- 
tated for an answer, and often turned the laugh upon 
the man who perhaps had expected to embarrass him. 
Altogether, it was a remarkable display of mental nimble- 
ness. One day an anxious inquirer, after many efforts, 
obtained a hearing, and asked : 

" Mr. Beecher, how is it, in your opinion, that there 
are so many short pastorates in these days ? " 

" Largely of the Divine mercy," was the instantaneous 
response. 

It is needless to add that the audience broke into a 
roar of laughter, which burst forth anew as often as it 
subsided, until it seemed as if it would never stop. 

One of the almost countless instances of Mr. Beecher's 
readiness at repartee occurred a few years ago on the first 
of April. Some would-be wag sent him a letter con- 
taining on a sheet of paper only the words, " April Fool." 
Mr. Beecher opened it, and then a delighted smile beamed 
over his face as he exclaimed : " Well ! I've often heard 
of a man writing a letter and forgetting to sign it ; but 
this is the first case of a man signing his name and for- 
getting to write the letter ! " 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 489 

" The newspaper men will always remember him with 
kind regard," remarks an old New York reporter. " Of 
all prominent public men, I think he was the most ap- 
proachable. Even during his great trials — both Church 
and State — the eminent divine was affable to the 
humblest scribe, though the latter may have been con- 
nected with a paper that was anti-Beecher, with a duty 
assigned him that was to discolor the bright plush of 
Plymouth's pulpit. True it is that his counsel and friends 
kept Mr. Beecher as much aloof as possible from inter- 
views by press representatives, and well they might, for 
words had been placed in type — in cold lead — that never 
fell from the great preacher's mouth, and ' Bohemian ' 
translations were given to his expressions as far removed 
from the truth as an Egyptian hieroglyphic is from a 
hanging-order to a sheriff. 

The last time I met Henry Ward Beecher was in the 
Brackett House, Rochester, N. Y., when he and his pri- 
vate secretary were on their way to Salt Lake. This 
was some time after the last trial, and shortly subsequent 
to the time when he was chosen chaplain of the Thir- 
teenth (Brooklyn) regiment of the New York National 
Guard. He had been absent from home several days, 
having made the trip to the point named via the Erie 
road, as he wished to pay a visit to his brother Thomas, 
in Elmira. I found him in the hotel parlor waiting for 
the Western train. He was reading by the aid of a half- 



490 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

burned wax-candle which he held in his hand close to 
the paper, although there was the usual ample gas-light 
in the room. Very pleasantly he remarked that his eye- 
sight had grown dim and necessitated a nearer light than 
that generally afforded by the illuminating fixtures in 
public places. He said he was making a Western trip, 
perhaps for the last time, and that only one more exten- 
sive journey was in contemplation, and that that was 
across the sea. " I hate," he said, " to go to Europe and 
have people ask me about places of note in my own coun- 
try, and then have to confess I never saw them. Hence, 
I intend to make very close observations during this 
Western journey." 

On being asked if he did not think the ordeal through 
which the Tilton scandal had forced him would occasion 
him rather unpleasant publicity, he said he had never 
given that matter a thought since the case had ended in 
the courts. In fact, as the newspapers had made it their 
own property, he did not even then have a first mort- 
gage on the scandal. It so happened that on the day 
referred to Frank Leslie's illustrated journal had arrived, 
with the first-page picture representing Henry Ward 
Beecher in the full military dress of the chaplain of the 
Thirteenth. When it was shown him for the first time, 
he laughed heartily, and remarked that the picture was 
very life-like indeed, especially as he had never worn the 
uniform, and in fact had not at that time ordered it. 






REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 491 

He hoped, however, that the tailor would make as good 
a fit as the sketch artist had, and also as cheap. Wendell 
Phillips had lectured in Rochester that night on " Daniel 
O'Connell." When Mr. Beecher heard of this he became 
very enthusiastic in praise of the great orator, and ex- 
pressed his regret at not being in the city at an hour that 
would have permitted his attendance at the lecture. 
" Wendell and I have been friends for a lifetime," he 
said, " and there is only one thing I have to blame him 
for. He ought to have been a minister. What good he 
could have done ! Yes, he might have been a chaplain 
of a militia regiment, and I do not doubt in the least that 
had he taken clerical orders he would have been the 
target of scandalous tongues and pens. One thing is 
certain, however, he has done more than a regiment of 
soldiers and preachers for the freedom of the negro, and 
if Ireland had one or two such champions, that distressed 
country would need no Fenian organization." 

Just before Mr. Beecher departed for the West, Wen- 
dell Phillips arrived at the depot to take the train for 
the East. The meeting between the two great American 
orators was of the most cordial character, and profuse re- 
grets were heartily expressed that they were not going in 
the same direction. Thus ended an interview ever to be 
remembered. 

Though methodical in his habits of labor, he could 
never work when he did not feel in the humor for it. 



492 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" I can't work unless the sap flows," was his common re- 
mark when urged to finish the " Life of Christ." His 
correspondence was immense. If away for a few days 
his table would be covered with letters from all over the 
world. He was punctual in replying to all that he found 
worth answering. This was about the only writing he 
was accustomed to do at night. 

If a certain promissory note, made upon a piece of 
leather, be found among his assets, it will be dated " Sar- 
atoga," and contain the signature of a Saratogian who 
expected to reap a rich harvest by having the distin- 
guished divine lecture in the Town Hall one evening 
several winters ago. Unfortunately, the weather that 
night was of the blizzard pattern, and the attendance 
was a numerical disappointment to the individual man- 
agement. The lecturer was to have begun at eight 
o'clock, but he did not ascend the platform till 8.15 p.m. 
It subsequently leaked out that the person who had en- 
gaged Mr. Beecher was financially heart-broken at the 
result and was able to hand him only a portion of the 
$250 agreed upon. " I will give you my note for the bal- 
ance," said the Saratogian. " That is a good idea," said 
Mr. Beecher, " but allow me to suggest that you make 
it out on leather, in order that I can the better preserve it." 
Whether the leather note relic is found or not, the inci- 
dent illustrated the eminent pulpit orator's keen apprecia- 
tion of the ludicrous and grotesque. 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 493 

Two or three times during the lecture referred to 
above Mr. Beecher was annoyed by the insufferable 
noise created by a gallery door, the hinges of which had 
evidently not been greased for years. An overgrown 
fellow, wearing a new pair of heavy boots, blundered 
through the swinging door and measured his way to a 
seat, when Mr. Beecher stopped in the centre of a brill- 
iant flight of oratory, and with a quizzical expression 
remarked : " I actually believe that it would greatly add 
to the happiness of all if the hand of industry would ap- 
ply the oil of harmony in order to alleviate the excruciat- 
ing agony of that squeaking hinge." The wearer of the 
boots was of the opinion that he was the " hinge " re- 
ferred to, and consequently was the only one in the au- 
dience who did not enjoy the lecture. The hinge — not 
the boots — has been oiled regularly since that date. 

Once while taking supper at a second-rate hotel in 
Central New Jersey, Mr. Beecher, after a few moments of 
meditation, called to the colored waiter. " Can you give 
me a good deal of your time to-night ? " said the great 
preacher to the son of Africa. The son of Africa, with 
bright visions of a two-dollar bill, replied, " Yes, sah. May 
find it mighty hard, sah, but I'll try." "Well," said Mr. 
Beecher, " I want you to sit up all night with that coffee. 
It's so weak it's going to die before morning." 

While delivering the Lyman Beecher course of lect- 
ures in 1872, Mr. Beecher was asked by one of the theo- 



494 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

logical professors if a cold and unsympathetic man ought 
to enter the ministry. " As well," quoth Mr. Beecher, 
" take an icicle to warm a sick man's bed." 

The Young Men's Institute engaged Mr. Beecher to 
lecture in Waterbury, Conn. It being his first visit to 
Waterbury, Hotchkiss' hall was filled in floor and gal- 
lery. Beecher stopped at the Scoville House. Its repu- 
tation then (kept by a former landlord) was not very 
good. It was at a time when the firemen, at their an- 
nual ball supper, were given cold rice and used to have 
to draw cuts between each couple for an oyster stew, as 
this delicacy in those days was alternated down the long 
tables with clam chowder. 

On the morning following the lecture Mr. Beecher de- 
cided to visit a friend in New Milford, and concluded to 
drive overland. A team was hired at the Scoville House 
stables. Jerry Flynn, the stable-boy, engaged to drive 
Mr. Beecher to New Milford. Not a word was spoken 
for ten miles, when going up a long hill near Southbury, 
the divine spoke up abruptly : 

" Boy, did you ever feel like a stuffed sausage ? " 

" No," said the boy. 

" Well, sir, you never will if you board at the Scoville 
House." 

This was the only word uttered during the trip, but it 
verifies the statement that Mr. Beecher liked something 
good to eat. 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 495 

The great friendship that has always existed between 
Mr. Beecher and the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of Holy 
Trinity, has been a favorite theme of discussion among 
Brooklyn pastors, and the following incident shows the 
depth of that feeling : It was during the famous trial, and 
a celebration of some kind was being held in Dr. Hall's 
church. To the surprise of the strict Episcopalians, Mr. 
Beecher attended, and to their horror was admitted be- 
hind the chancel-rail. This provoked an expression of 
indignation from some of the members, who carried their 
grievances to Dr. Hall. That gentleman drew himself 
up to his full height, and inquired : " What have you to 
say about it ? Mr. Beecher is not convicted ; he is only 
on trial ; and I reserve the right to extend the right 
hand of fellowship to any man who needs it or deserves 
it. He is my friend, and what kind of a man is he who 
will not in time of trouble help his friend ? What have 
you to say against it ? " 

" But the Bishop — what will he say ?" asked the in- 
dignant members. 

Dr. Hall's face grew blacker than ever. " The Bishop," 
he said — " what business is it of his ? What right has 
the Bishop to interfere with my private affairs ? " 

Mr. Beecher remained, and the only comment of the 
indignant members was, "Well, Dr. Hall is the only 
man who could do that, and Mr. Beecher is the only one 
who could make him do it." 



49^ LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

An old-time New York journalist, who had had inti- 
mate associations with Mr. Beecher for many years, said, 
recently : " I never found anything about Mr. Beecher 
more characteristic than his humor. He was filled with 
amusing anecdotes about public men, and loved to hear 
one at his own expense. I met him one night on the 
steps of Moulton's house, in Brooklyn, and he sat down on 
the cold stone to listen to a story about his first volume 
of the ' Life of Christ.' Mr. Beecher laughed heartily over 
it, and admitted its entire truth. When the book was 
ready for the press a steel plate costing $400 was made 
for the title-page. It read, as engraved, ' Life of Jesus 
Christ. By Henry Ward Beecher ; ' but Mr. Beecher 
had written on the margin, for insertion after Jesus and 
before Christ, the word ' the.' The idea had not come to 
him until after the plate was made, and the question of 
expense never occurred to him." 

" Naturally enough," said a friend of Mr. Beecher, " he 
was frequently present at public dinners, and a singular 
feature of his conduct on such occasions was his total ab- 
stinence from the solid and liquid good cheer set before 
him. His abstinence, he told me, was in accordance with 
his doctor's advice, and a measure of precaution against 
apoplexy. Just fancy the stoicism and self-denial in- 
volved in a man of Beecher's enthusiastic temperament 
sitting through a long dinner, and patiently waiting for 
the time to come when he should share in the intellectual 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 49? 

part of it. I have seen him occasionally drink a little 
water at a banquet, but beyond that indulgence he never 
went." 

A friend in Washington says, there is no doubt that 
President Cleveland held Mr. Beecher in very high es- 
teem. This was so notorious, it will be remembered, 
that during the early part of the present administration 
there was some talk about the divine going to England as 
Minister to the Court of St. James. But Mr. Beecher had 
no taste or ambition for such a position, were it offered 
him. 

A number of times during the past six years Mr. 
Beecher visited Washington. Usually he came in the 
capacity of lecturer, and occupied the pulpit at the First 
Congregational Church. He drew large audiences of the 
best people. He always stopped at the Ebbitt, and a 
large number of citizens would go to the hotel for meals 
during his stay, simply to get to see and hear him in his 
more private capacity than he appeared in when on the 
rostrum. 

When Mr. Beecher entered the dining-room he was in- 
variably seated at a table alone, and ere ten minutes 
elapsed there would not be a vacant seat at the table oc- 
cupied by him. Instantly upon his seating himself there 
would be a movement about the dining-room. Every- 
body who knew him, and many who did not know him 
personally, insisted upon going to his table. And scarcely 



498 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

a moment during the hour and a half at the table would 
all have sober faces. It was an uninterrupted season of 
laughing from the moment one sat down beside him till 
he was out of sight. He insisted that serious subjects 
ought not to be discussed at the dining-table, as they re- 
tarded digestion. 

Mr. Beecher was to have married a young couple at 
his house on Thursday evening of the week before his 
death, but on Wednesday night the young man came to 
announce that the lady had backed out. " Cheer up," 
said Mr. Beecher — " I will get you a better girl," and he 
summoned his house-maid, Mary Moloney. 

Mr. Beecher was present at a dinner to Herbert 
Spencer some years ago, and addressed a highly intellect- 
ual, not to say sceptical, audience, and brought them to 
their feet in a perfect storm of applause by a speech 
which he concluded with the confident assertion of his 
belief in immortality. Hon. Willard Bartlett says : " He 
then vindicated his title to be considered the greatest 
preacher of his time, not only to the common people, 
but to those who, in some sort at least, claim to be the 
wisest of mankind." 

Once in an address in the Broadway Tabernacle he 
described some atrocity in the South, and said : " Is 
there anybody worse than that in Sing Sing ? " From 
the highest gallery a shrill voice cried out, " Yes." " I 
give it up, then," said Mr. Beecher ; " you've been there." 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 499 

When the audience learned that it was not prearranged, 
the cheering was tremendous. 

Mr. Beecher even had a fixed opinion about dogs. He 
once said : " If the dog isn't good for anything else, it is 
good for you to love, and that is a good deal. I have two 
miserable little scraggy dogs up at my Peekskill farm. 
They are practically good for nothing, but I sometimes 
think that they are worth more to me than the whole place.'' 

He did not like the petition in the Litany in the Book 
of Common Prayer for delivery from sudden death. His 
father, Lyman Beecher, lived long after his mental facul- 
ties were impaired. Referring to his father's experience, 
he once said to a friend : " I know there is a purgatory, 
for I have seen it." 

He was very proud of a compliment paid his preaching 
by a little boy who said : " I don't know what he means, 
but somehow I feel better." 

As before stated, Mr. Beecher's last public speech was 
delivered at a demonstration in Chickering Hall, in New 
York, on February 26th, in favor of the Crosby High 
License Bill. He was received with a perfect tumult of 
applause. When he began his address he did so in a 
somewhat low tone of voice, which elicited cries of 
" Louder ! " He replied : " I'll be loud enough when I 
get warmed up." 

Dr. Talmage was asked what he thought of the nar- 
row-minded refusal of the Chicago clergy to send Mrs. 



500 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Beecher an expression of sympathy. He smiled gently, 
and said : " I read of a battle fought in a fog, during the 
late rebellion, when two regiments of the same army 
shattered each other before it was found that friends were 
destroying friends. Mr. Beecher was too great for de- 
struction by a battle in a fog." 

A young gentleman who has grown up under the 
ministrations of the Plymouth pastor thus describes his 
youthful acquaintance with him : 

" Mr. Beecher was always a great swimmer. There 
was in those days near Fulton Ferry a huge floating 
boat-house, kept by an old-time exhorter named Gray. 
Thither Mr. Beecher used to go in his younger days, and 
with head-long jump, plunge deep into the East River 
waves, spouting and puffing with all the energy of a fully- 
developed whale — an expert swimmer, a diver better than 
any boy in the City of Churches. The price for a bath 
was a shilling, and I never shall forget the odd sensation 
I experienced one day when, meeting the dominie in the 
street, he asked if I would go down to the ferry and 
take a bath. I was about eight years old, and not over- 
burdened with spending money, and bluntly told him I 
would like to go first-rate, but that I hadn't got the 
shilling. A quizzical look spread all over his ruddy face, 
as laughingly he took me by the hand and said : ' Come 
along. When you ask a young lady to take ice-cream 
with you, you don't expect her to pay for it, do you ? ' 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. $01 

" Later on a number of us boys clubbed together and 
started a debating society. Governor Banks, John H. 
Raymond, President of Vassar College, and Mr. Beecher 
were among our lecturers. We hired the Athenaeum, 
corner of Atlantic and Clinton Streets, Brooklyn, and 
with a flourish of trumpets announced Mr. Beecher in 
his famous lecture on ' Character.' His clean-cut dis- 
tinction drawn that night between character and reputa- 
tion produced an impression upon many a mature mind, 
and started thoughts in many a youthful mentality that 
have been of vast usefulness in stormy periods since. It 
fell to my lot to introduce the lecturer, and just before 
we went on, while waiting in the little ante-disrobing 
room, I said, suiting the action to the word, with chin in 
the air, this is the way I am going to sit. Beecher 
laughed and said: 'No, no; put down your chin. 
Whenever you see a man with his chin in the air, you 
may know there is nothing in the front of his head.' 
Continuing, he asked : ' What are you going to say ?' I 
told him I wanted to announce that the next lecture 
would be delivered by Mr. Banks, of Massachusetts, but 
that I really didn't know how to do it. ' Why,' said he, 
'do it just as you have done it to me. Tell them what 
you have to say and then sit down.' 

" The receipts of the lecture were about one hundred 
and seventy-five dollars ; the expenses, including rental 
of the hall, advertising, and attendance, about fifty dol- 



502 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

lars. After the lecture was over Mr. Beecher, my cousin, 
and I walked home together, and as we said ' Good-night' 
at the door of my father's house, while shaking hands 
with him I left in his palm his fee of fifty dollars. Recog- 
nizing in a moment what it was, he pushed it back with 
a gesture almost of impatience, certainly of annoyance, 
and said : ' Nonsense ; keep that to pull you through.' " 

Mr. Beecher spent most of the last day of his con- 
scious life driving about New York with his wife on vari- 
ous errands of pleasure and business. Mr. E. C. Fisher, 
a prominent member of his church, met him at the sec- 
ond landing of the stairs leading to Cassell & Co.'s office, 
at No. 739 Broadway. Mr. Beecher was out of breath 
and exhausted with the effort of climbing, and as he sank 
into a chair at the door of the office he said, " Confound 
those stairs ! " 

" Why, Mr. Beecher," said Mr. Fisher, " I never heard 
you speak ill of anybody before." 

" Well, those stairs are not anybody," Mr. Beecher re- 
plied, and he would not budge from the chair at the 
outer door until he was thoroughly rested. 

Then he went with Mr. Fisher to the inner office to 
be introduced to Mr. Dunham, the manager of the house. 
He had come to get a " Beecher Calendar " for every 
one of his children and grandchildren. When the calen- 
dar was issued Mr. Beecher took very little interest in it, 
and said that he was not epigrammatic enough to furnish 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 503 

brief selections suitable for such a purpose ; it was too 
easy in that way to get hold of one end of his idea and 
leave the other in the air. But a friend who had one of 
these calendars converted him by reading to him, when- 
ever he appeared, the very concise and appropriate 
phrases in which he had hit off the sentiments. After 
that he regarded it with more interest, and was really 
quite pleased with the way " that old fellow " daily 
touched upon the foibles, provoked the mirth, and 
soothed the sorrows of his kind. 

The following from the pen of the Rev. Frank Russell, 
who was intimate with Mr. Beecher's family, may be 
suggestive of one charm : 

" The impression is prevalent that Mr. Beecher's life 
was one of singular charity and generosity, and in this 
regard he was probably susceptible of easy imposition. I 
have seen him hand money to those asking alms, or call- 
ing at his door with pitiful tales of distress, in amounts 
which I silently thought were far too large for the 
occasion. The remark was common among those who 
knew of the circumstances, when his apparently large 
salary was the theme of conversation, that it made very 
little difference how much Mr. Beecher received, for he 
would give all away but his living, and his family had to 
watch pretty closely to get that." 

The principal charm of Mr. Beecher's sermons was 
that they were neither bookish nor shop-worn. There 



504 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

was none of the atmosphere of the study on them, nor 
the flavor of midnight oil. The Rev. William M. Tay- 
lor once wrote concerning his sermons, saying : 

" Those who know him best say that he studies his 
sermons in the shops and stores, in the streets and in the 
ferry-boats ; and we believe it, for they are like the pro- 
ductions of a man who has gone through the city with 
his eyes open." 

Mr. Beecher said concerning his sermons that he never 
put them on the market before they were ripe ; or, in 
other words, he never preached a sermon that he had not 
carefully thought out beforehand. He preached to his 
people, not at them. 

Some years ago, a friend relates, the East River was 
frozen over, and the passage of the ferry-boats between 
New York and Brooklyn stopped for several hours until 
a channel could be cut. A number of venturesome busi- 
ness men, anxious to reach New York, crossed on the ice 
near Pierrepont's stores, landing on the New York side 
below Fulton Ferry. Mr. Beecher came down from his 
residence, with the intention of taking passage to New 
York, and finding the boats not running he led a large 
party across the ice-field, which late-comers had hesitated 
to venture upon. Mr. Beecher acted most of the way, 
like a school-boy — running and sliding — and when he 
reached the New York shore he declared, " I've not had 
as much fun since I was a boy ! " 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 505 

A neighbor of Mr. Beecher relates that he never grew 
old in his love of simple pleasures. He would eat candy 
like a school-boy. One night the neighbor was crossing 
Fulton Ferry at a late hour, when Mr. Beecher sauntered 
aboard and took his seat under one of the side gaslights. 
He was unattended, and there were very few passengers 
in the cabin. He had a big, white paper of "mixed 
candy." There must have been a pound of it at least. It 
was cone-shaped, and while with one hand he held the 
apex he thrust the other into the sweets every few 
minutes and conveyed a handful to his mouth. He 
munched away without ceremony, regardless of the side- 
long glances stolen at his democratic feast. When the 
boat struck the slip he moved out into the street and up 
the Heights, eating away with childish relish and at a 
rate that promised the total consumption of the supply 
before he got to his house. 

At another time the same gentleman was on his way 
to Washington by the limited express when, just as the 
train was about to leave the depot at Jersey City, Mr. 
Beecher came hurriedly aboard. The place assigned him 
happened to be one of the sofa-seats in the same com- 
partment with his friend. It was in the winter, and he 
had on a capacious overcoat. The outside pockets were 
stuffed with pea-nuts. The train had hardly started 
when he produced a package of papers, most of them 
religious weeklies, and began to read. Although he must 



506 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

have had breakfast hardly an hour before, he brought out 
a handful of pea-nuts and proceeded to eat them. From 
this moment onward until the train reached Wilmington, 
at two o'clock in the afternoon, he never left his seat. 
But he read the papers and ate pea-nuts. Even in the 
fifteen minutes for lunch at Philadelphia the caterer on the 
train did not divert him from his twofold occupation. 
He drank nothing ; he saw nothing ; he ate nothing but 
pea-nuts. The discarded shells were carefully thrown in a 
heap at the end of the sofa, and would have more than 
filled a peck measure when the train arrived at Wilming- 
ton. Here the monotonous business was interrupted at 
last. A gentleman who got aboard at this point walked 
through the train, looking for someone. It was a com- 
mittee-man delegated to meet the clergyman and escort 
him to his hotel in Baltimore, where he was to deliver a 
lecture that night. 

Ex-Postmaster McLeer, of Brooklyn, relates an amus- 
ing story of Mr. Beecher. He notified Mr. Beecher that 
a " dead letter " of his was held, and received in reply 
the following : 

"October 28, 1880. 
" Colonel McLeer — 

Dear Sir : Your notice that a letter of mine was 
dead and subject to my order is before me. 

" We must all die ! And though the premature de- 
cease of my poor letter should excite a proper sympathy 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. $0? 

(and I hope it does), yet I am greatly sustained under the 
affliction. 

"What was the date of its death ? Of what did it 
die ? Had it in its last hours proper attention and such 
consolation as befit the melancholy occasion ? Did it 
leave any effects ? 

" Will you kindly see to its funeral ? I am strongly 
inclined to cremation. 

" May I ask whether any other letters of mine are sick, 
dangerously sick ? If any depart this life, don't notify 
me till after the funeral. 

" Affectionately yours, 

" Henry Ward Beecher." 

Colonel McLeer examined the deceased letter and 
wrote to Mr. Beecher : " I hesitate, Mr. Beecher, to 
carry out your instructions in regard to the cremation of 
your letter, as it contains a check for $150." 

On the receipt of this information, Mr. Beecher hast- 
ened to Colonel McLeer's office. Entering the room 
with a rush, he threw his hat with force on the desk. 
Drawing himself to his full height he, without preface 
and looking the colonel full in the face, said : 

" I do hereby fully revoke, cancel, and rescind all the 
powers delegated to you to cremate any letters of mine, 
or any in which I may have an interest." 

Then he demanded his letter, received it, and the two 



508 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

friends sat down and endeavored to outdo each other in 
telling stories. 

The following letter was written by Mr. Beecher to a 
local artist some time ago, after a number of photographs 
of himself had been submitted to him : 



" Dear Sir : One of the small photos is comely in 
my wife's eyes. The larger ones are good, provided you 
finish one of them for women and one for men — i.e., one 
of them as I ought to look, and the other as I do look. 

" Henry Ward Beecher." 

Chandos Fulton relates that he was taken by a mutual 
friend to call on Mr. Beecher, and see his collection of 
engravings, when he lived in his home on the Heights. 
The stories he had heard in childhood, in his Southern 
home, of Mr. Beecher strongly prejudiced him, and he 
determined to have little to say to him. Mr. Beecher, 
however, was so cordial and affable, the introducer being 
an esteemed friend, that the Southerner's predilections 
soon vanished, and he observed, " Oh, Mr. Beecher, if the 
Southern people only knew you, you would have many 
friends there." Mr. Beecher, who had just returned from 
his first Southern lecturing-tour, responded, " I wish I 
could be the cement for a reunited North and South." 

Fulton was then a pale-faced stripling, and the conver- 
sation turning on the physique, Mr. Beecher, glancing at 







Mr. BEECHER'S RESIDENCE, BROOKLYN, N. Y.— THE HOUSE 
IN WHICH HE DIED. 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 5 1 1 

the slender waist of his guest, laughingly exclaimed, "Ad- 
ministrative men need good stomachs. The stomach is 
the same to the man that the boiler is to the locomotive. 
See what large, rotund boilers the locomotives require 
to haul trains over the mountains here, because great 
work is required of them. They couldn't do their work 
without great, big boilers. A man needs a good corpora- 
tion to do much sustained, active, great work." 

The conversation was interrupted by a parade of the 
Plymouth Sunday-school, which Mr. Beecher reviewed 
from his front steps. Each child was provided with a 
large bouquet of roses, which was thrown to Mr. Beecher, 
and by the time the procession had passed he stood knee- 
deep in a pile of fragrant roses. In showing his engrav- 
ings to his visitor Mr. Beecher evinced an artist's enthu- 
siasm in his appreciation. 

Mrs. M. H. Fiske tells the following anecdote : Some 
years ago, shortly after the great Brooklyn trial, I took 
an early morning train for Pittsburg, and to my satisfac- 
tion the occupant of the next chair proved to be Henry 
Ward Beecher. Notwithstanding a dozen attempts made 
by passengers to enter into conversation, he dozed until 
nearly noon, and then, though pleasant to those who from 
time to time gathered about, conversation was confined 
to his questioners ; he took very little part in it. 

There was a solid-looking old fellow opposite, and he 
fell to talking to me of a very dreadful sentence he was 



512 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

reading about that had just been passed on some crimi- 
nal. The man was to be confined in a prison for a year ; 
at the end of the year he was to be taken out and 
hanged. 

" It's something horrible to think of that man living a 
year with certain death hanging over," said the stranger. 

" We're in the same boat," said I. " Perhaps our sen- 
tence will take effect in less than a year. There's many 
a person on board this train who hasn't twelve months' 
imprisonment to serve." 

Mr. Beecher swung around in his chair. 

" No doubt about that," said he. " And probably that 
criminal will give as little heed to the end as we do, until 
the months narrow down and the very scaffold is in sight." 

The conversation became interesting. Mr. Beecher 
said he questioned the wisdom of granting that man's 
prayer who said, " Oh, Lord, let me know my end." 
We discussed capital punishment, and about all the great 
questions of the day, when, to my horror and utter as- 
tonishment, the old man said : " This Beecher business 
is an unfortunate affair. What's your opinion of its effect 
on the Church ? " 

I don't know which of us got the worst of that blow. 
We both fairly staggered. I looked in the face of the 
well-meaning, innocent old questioner, and then the fun 
of the thing struck me, and I burst out laughing. Mr. 
Beecher was amused and perplexed, so I said : 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 5 1 3 

" Haven't you read the conditions on which this Pan- 
Handle road issues tickets ? " 

" Why, no." 

" It expressly states that a ticket is forfeited if anyone 
holding it converses about the Beecher case." 

" I've heard they put up such notices in factories — it 
led to so much discussion," laughed the old man. 

" And it's specially objectionable in railway trains," 
said I. 

Mr. Beecher was looking at a Philadelphia paper with 
a not wholly pleased smile on his face. 

" I am afraid the artists of country journals are not 
very successful in their portraits," said he, as he laid it 
down, with an expressive glance at me. 

Then things went on very pleasantly until the train 
stopped for dinner, and a hungry looking minister came 
in from another car, straightened up before us and sung 
out, in a hymn-book voice : 

" Well, Brother Beecher, will you go out and try this 
place ? " 

And Brother Beecher replied that he would like to 
shake the cramps out of his legs by a turn on the plat- 
form, but he had a painful recollection of that refresh- 
ment-room as containing more mediaeval sandwiches and 
prehistoric pie than any other on the road. 

Our poor companion was almost paralyzed at men- 
tion of the name. I saw him give a hasty but en- 



514 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

lightened glance at the big gray mane and florid face of 
H. W. B. 

When the two ministers left the cars, in a despairing 
tone the patriot across the way said : 

" I do believe that's Beecher himself." 

" It certainly is," responded I. The old fellow mut- 
tered something about a smoke, got up, took all his bag- 
gage and went to some remote car to finish his journey 
alone. 

After Mr. Beecher came back he said : 

" I wouldn't have believed that outside a blind asylum 
such an incident as that could have occurred." 

Then we fell to talking of " Uncle Tom's Cabin," and 
the play and the people who played in it, and he told 
rne of meeting some old actor and asking him if he ever 
played in " Uncle Tom," and the old fakir replying that 
he had done " everything in it but Eva and the cake of 
ice that Eliza escaped on." 

" They are a large-hearted, great-souled people as a 
class," said he of actors. " I question if there are any 
happier persons in the world than those in the theatrical 
profession. ' All the world's a stage,' and I clasp hands 
with my fellow-actors as often as I can." 

And he certainly did. I remember Ellen Terry showed 
me a strange old aqua-marine ring he gave her, and she 
told me what a charming Sunday Mr. Irving and she 
had spent at the parsonage in Brooklyn. 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 5 I 5 

At a New England dinner in Boston Mr. Beecher 
heard Nat Goodwin in some imitations, and was de- 
lighted with him. Meeting him afterward at a hotel in 
the West, Nat told him a story of some New York cler- 
gyman, unconsciously imitating the voice and manner- 
isms of the gentleman. 

" Give me an imitation of myself," said Beecher. 
" Why, peculiarities I have never noticed I recognize in 
your imitations. I'd really like to hear my own defects 
so voiced that I might remedy them." 

But as Nat would never do Irving for Irving, so he 
didn't treat Beecher to Beecher. 

The great orator had a marvellous memory. Ten years 
after that ride to Pittsburg, although I had met him 
many times, we had never discussed the funny old man 
of the train. But when Klunder gave a big flower-show 
at the Metropolitan Opera House I had seen almost 
everyone turn to take a second look at Beecher, when of 
a sudden a couple of men halted near us, and one said 
audibly : " Which one is Beecher ? where is Beecher ? " 

Mr. Beecher laughed and turned to me and said : 

" That old man's got back from Pittsburg," showing 
plainly that the ten-year-old incident was unforgotten by 
him. 

" I knew I should meet you here," said an old lady to 
him. "I. never went to a flower-show in my life that I 
did not find you there before me." 



5 16 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

"I'm like all the other old ladies in my love for 
flowers," said he. 

As an Irishman remarked of his dead friend, " How he 
would have enjoyed his funeral if he had lived." 

Another intimate friend of Mr. Beecher says that he 
occasionally seemed to lose confidence in himself. " Time 
and again," said this friend, "he has told me that when 
before an audience at some public meeting, and while 
awaiting his turn to speak, he was often almost on the 
point of getting up and going out. ' As I listened to one 
and another speaker address the meeting,' he used to say, 
1 1 would think, my goodness, I never can make such 
speeches as those : I'd better leave here at once.' But 
when he was once on his feet all these feelings vanished, 
of course, and he felt completely at ease. He was al- 
ways subject to these times of self-depreciation both in 
and out of the pulpit. When he first came to Brooklyn 
he used to go round the back streets just to avoid meet- 
ing people whom he might know. He combined with 
his wonderful vigor and boldness the shrinking timidity 
of a school-girl." 

Of Mr. Beecher's absent-mindedness, Dr. Searle, his 
physician, told this story : " Mrs. Searle was standing at 
the parlor window one day, when she noticed Mr. 
Beecher go up Mr. Raymond's stoop, over the way, and 
ring the bell. Before it was answered he came down 
the steps, and continued on his way up the street. See- 



REMINISCENCES AND ANECDOTES. 517 

ing Mrs. Searle he crossed over, and with a smile said-: 
1 Say, can you tell me where I am going this after- 
noon ? ' 

" ' Why, you are going to baptize Mr. Howard's child 
to-day, are you not ? ' 

" ' That's it, that's just it,' he replied, ' but for the life 
of me I couldn't recall the fact.' 

" Another instance I recollect," continued the doctor, 
" happened at his house. I was there at dinner. Major 
Pond, who was also present, spoke about a concert that 
was to be held in New York that evening. Mr. Beecher 
said he would like to attend it with him. ' But you 
can't go,' said Mrs. Beecher to him, ' you have an engage- 
ment for to-night.'* ' Oh, no, I haven't,' he rejoined, 'I 
am free to-night, and I think I'll go over to the concert.' 
While she was trying to convince him that he really had 
some other matter on hand a carriage drove up to take 
him to Hoboken, where he was booked for a lecture." 

In reference to Mr. Beecher's memory, the doctor 
added : " It was marvellously poor. About the only 
thing that he could remember, he used to say, was the 
list of prepositions that govern the ablative case in Latin. 
These he could rattle off like sixty, and did so fre- 
quently." 



CHAPTER XXIV. 

HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 

Mr. Bcecher's Visit to England in 1886. — Declines to Interfere in Eng- 
lish Politics. — Preaching and Lecturing. — Declines a Reception on 
Returning Home. — His Last Sermon in Plymouth Church. — The 
Fatal Stroke of Apoplexy. — How the News was Received. — Incidents 
of His Illness. — Sinking Steadily. — His Death on Tuesday, March 
nth. — Sympathy for the Family. — Private Service at the House. — 
A Public Funeral without Crape. — Floral Decorations. — Lying in 
State. — Services Simultaneously in Five Churches. — Testimony of a 
Hebrew. — The Closing Ceremony. — Laid at Rest. 

In 1886 Mr. Beecher visited England for the third time, 
partly for rest and change of scene, and partly to fulfil 
numerous lecture-engagements. He was accompanied 
by Mrs. Beecher and Major Pond, and sailed on June 
19th on the Cunard steamship Etruria. At that time 
all England was ablaze with the national elections. It 
was a question whether Gladstone and Parnell should 
control, or whether Home Rule should go to the wall. 
The period was a critical one. Everybody knew in what 
direction Mr. Beecher's sympathies tended, and there 
was an expectation that when he reached the other side 
there would be something in the nature of a repetition of 
his war-time triumphs over English prejudice. There 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 519 

was some disappointment on this side, therefore, when 
he failed to realize the expectations of some of the folks 
who were hopeful that he would work toward the good 
of Ireland. 

On arriving at Liverpool he found telegrams and let- 
ters awaiting him, asking his attendance at the Home 
Rule meetings that were then being held throughout the 
larid. He was compelled to ignore them all. Delegation 
after delegation waited upon him to urge his presence at 
this, that, or the other place throughout the United King- 
dom, where Gladstone's policy was to be upheld, but to 
all of them Mr. Beecher returned, in substance, this an- 
swer : 

" I am here simply as an American citizen. Whatever 
may be my personal feeling in this matter, I am debarred 
just now from thrusting my views upon the voters' of fce 
country. From an international stand-point it would not 
be courteous, and from my stand-point it would be im- 
pertinent." 

At the same time he could not restrain himself en- 
tirely. His sympathies were so thoroughly aroused in 
the cause of the Irish people, which was to him broader 
than the mere question of sectionalism, that he was per- 
force embroiled to some extent in the contest. He de- 
layed his departure to London for three days in order to 
be present at Gladstone's closing address in the campaign, 

at Henglar's Circus, Liverpool. The "two grand old 
22 



520 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

men " met in the ante-room at that meeting, and when 
they went upon the platform there were almost as many 
and as enthusiastic cheers for Beecher as there were for 
the latter-day industrial liberator. Despite the urgent 
calls for some utterance from the man who, a quarter of a 
century before, had quelled the pro-Southern Liverpool 
mobs and brought them to reason, Mr. Beecher would 
say nothing, adhering to his belief that at that time it was 
not fitting that there should be any American interfer- 
ence. 

For a month he stopped in London. His social recep- 
tion there was of the most emphatic and flattering de- 
scription. He lectured extensively, being greeted every- 
where with crowded houses ; and after a four months' 
absence, returned home and was received with open arms 
b^fc. people who cherished him as a man of large heart, 
great brain, and large manhood. 

When he arrived there was some talk of a reception by 
his church, which he discouraged, and the Common 
Council of Brooklyn tendered him a public reception. 
This, also, he declined, with expressions of abundant ap- 
preciation of the honor offered him. He said that, while 
he was pleased and grateful that his fellow-citizens held 
him in high esteem, he dreaded going through the ordeal 
of sitting during a whole evening while his praises were 
being spoken, which he presumed would be the form the 
reception would take. But aside from that, and more 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 521 

decisive in the matter, was his reluctance to accept a 
demonstration of the kind proposed at the very time 
when the Church of the Pilgrims was celebrating the 
fortieth anniversary of the Rev. Dr. R. S. Storrs' pas- 
torate. He said that Dr. Storrs was justly entitled to 
great honor, and that it would be unseemly for another 
minister in his own denomination to consent to a recep- 
tion to himself which might even seem to be intended to 
divide public attention. 

While he was abroad he wrote as follows to an old 
friend in Brooklyn : 

" I want to come home. I have wandered enough. I 
cannot say I have rested enough, for I am kept very busy. 
True, I was never in better health and vigor, and am do- 
ing my work easily. I do not think I shall come back 
jaded. Yet I long every year to lay down my tasks and 
depart. It is not a judgment formed on reasonable 
grounds. It is simply a quiet longing of the spirit, a 
brooding desire to be through with my work, although I 
am willing to go on — if need be." 

After his return Mr. Beecher was occupied in his usual 
manner, in lecturing and the work of the Church, and also 
in writing the second volume of the " Life of Christ." In 
addition he wrote weekly letters for a newspaper syndi- 
cate, and prepared some magazine and other miscellaneous 
articles. Certainly he had few if any idle moments. 

His last sermon was delivered in Plymouth Church 



522 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

Sunday evening, February 27, 1887, from the text, Luke 
xvi. 4, the first clause : " I am resolved what to do." 

The following extracts from this sermon will be read 
with interest in view of the circumstances of their utter- 
ance : 

" The unjust steward had been accused, and rightfully, 
of betraying his trust and wasting that committed to 
him. His master called him to an account, and he was 
satisfied that the end had come; and he communed with 
himself, and as the result of that, and looking over all 
the circumstances, he said, ' I am resolved what to do.' 

" What he resolved to do was not very honest, but it 
was very shrewd. He resolved to make friends of all the 
debtors of his lord. He called them up and settled with 
them in such a way as to lay them under obligations — 
gratitude to Him. And so, although he and they cheated 
the master, he made his own nest warm and the master 
praised him — not Jesus, but the man that owned the 
property is the one. When he heard of it he said to him- 
self : ' Well, that is shrewd ; that is cunning ; that is wise,' 
and the comment on it is : Children of this world are 
wiser than the children of light ; that is to say, men who 
are acting in worldly reasons, for worldly reasons, are very 
much wiser than the men becoming good from the high- 
est moral considerations. But that that they have se- 
lected is simply this : 'lam resolved what to do.' 

" What, then, is the nature of a resolution — what is the 




Mr. BEECHER'S CHURCH, BROOKLYN, N. Y., CALLED PLYMOUTH 
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH. 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. $2$ 

scope of it, the potency ? A resolution is a purpose in 
so far as simple things, uncompounded, incomplex, are 
concerned. A resolution may be executed immediately, 
without loss of time ; indeed, the greatest number of 
resolutions are those which, like the stroke of the ham- 
mer or the explosion of the gun, are almost without any 
appreciable interlapse of time. ' I am resolved what to 
do.' Natural resolutions: At the cry of fire the man 
instantly looks out to see what to do ; at the call of a 
man to step to the door and see a stranger or a friend, 
he resolves to do it ; although the resolution is latent in 
such a sense by repetition, he is not conscious of making 
up his mind. 

" There are a good many people who don't seem ever 
to have a resolution ; they are like sieves — all their 
thoughts run through and are wasted ; there is a great 
deal of diffidence about them. There are some men whose 
thoughts are like the ratchet-wheel, the wheel that has, 
notch by notch, to hold what it has got ; and there are a 
great many whose thoughts are like thistle-downs, that 
are going everywhere, and don't know that they are 
going anywhere, and are subject to the mutations of the 
wind. There is a great deal of difference — need be — to 
win men to form resolutions, sometimes, of a strong nat- 
ure and a sterling, strong purpose ; when once they have 
resolved never to flinch, they never know in any hour a 
downsliding ; they may be less active at one time than 



526 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

another, but they don't turn back. Once having put 
their hand to the plough, they don't look back again. 
But then there are those that have the same policy reso- 
lution, but they are made of different stuff; it slides 
away; they forgot it ; they are not stiff enough to stand 
up against the wind, it may be, that shall come upon 
them. 

" Did you ever undertake to take apart a watch ? 
That is very easy. Did you ever undertake to put it 
together again ? That is not so easy. You don't know 
which screw goes in which hole ; you don't know exactly 
which wheel goes in first ; but one thing is perfectly cer- 
tain, and that is that nothing else will fit together but 
that of which the watch was made, and each wheel was 
destined to one place and to one avocation, and if you 
can bring them together, according to the intent of the 
maker, it will perform, and otherwise it will not. Now, 
a man was built with a great deal more care than ever a 
watch was. He has definite relations to himself. A 
man was made to live with men, and there is only one 
way and one principle on which men can live together — 
kindness, love. . . . True Christianity means living 
in those relations for which we were created — harmoniza- 
tion of ourselves, harmonization of our relations to our 
fellow-men, harmonization of our relation to the invisible 
future. 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 527 

" Are you, then, resolved at once to become a Chris- 
tian ? Can I be a Christian at once ? In one sense, no ; 
in another sense, yes. Nobody ever learned a trade at a 
blow, but he can begin this day ; no man ever became a 
scholar by a resolution, but he never can become one 
without a resolution ; it is a complex one and a con- 
stantly repeating one, ancillary resolutions upholding the 
main one. Are you willing to take the Bible just as a 
ship-master takes the chart? When he leaves the last 
shore-light and takes his direction he never says, ' Read 
me a direction or two ff the sailing-directions, and then 
read me the draughtings inside again and then again.' 
They have no relations at all to his course, to his actual 
sailing ; but he is not going to read so many parts of his 
chart and of his sailing-directions. Why, no ; he lays out 
his voyage from the beginning and every day he takes 
observations, and then he checks down on the chart just 
where he is. At noon to-morrow he takes another ob- 
servation ; not because there is any need of reading his 
chart, in reading any book on navigation ; not because 
he is studying astronomy for the sake of anything that is 
in astronomy. He has got a definite purpose in life ; 
after which he sells his astronomy, and after which he 
sells his books, or those which lay his course. Are 
you willing to begin a Christian course and voyage by 
going to the Word of God to ascertain exactly what is 
expected of you, both what you are to reject and what 



528 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

you are to adopt ? That is sensible, that is right resolv- 
ing, according to a practical basis and resolution. Are 
there any of you that are willing to make that resolve ? 
For a little while it will be a troublesome thing, for a 
little while ; and then easier and easier, with remuneration 
and exhilaration and joy and final victory." 

On the morning of Sunday, March 6, 1887, the news- 
papers throughout the country spread before their readers 
the startling intelligence that Mr. Beecher was lying at 
the point of death. His physicians had long feared an 
apoplectic stroke, and it camf on Saturday, March 
5th ; there were a few preliminary symptoms, running 
through Thursday and Friday, but no one recognized 
in them anything but a trifling illness, and the blow came 
at last with the force and horror of an unexpected thun- 
derbolt. He had been ill since Thursday. He had 
been in New York the greater part of the day and went 
to his son's house in Brooklyn late in the afternoon with 
a feeling of nausea. By the time he reached the house, 
No. 124 Hicks Street, he seemed quite prostrated. Dr. 
W. S. Searle, who has been his family physician for 
years, was summoned. In addition to the nausea and 
headache, the doctor found Mr. Beecher suffering from a 
soreness about the throat and chest to such an extent that 
he feared an attack of pneumonia. These symptoms 
quickly passed away and the patient grew better ; but 
when he went to bed he complained of a severe pain in 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 529 

his head. After a while he dropped off to sleep, but 
awoke at intervals all through the night. 

After daylight he began to improve, and by the time 
the doctor called he was better. Through Friday his 
condition was favorable, quieting all alarm felt by the 
family. 

Saturday morning a sudden change for the worse took 
place, and of such an alarming character that Dr. William 
A. Hammond, of New York, was hastily summoned. He 
and Dr. Searle made an examination and declared that 
Mr. Beecher was suffering from an apoplectic attack. He 
lay in a semi-comatose condition, but neither conscious- 
ness nor his unfailing sense of humor had quite forsaken 
him. 

" Can you raise your arm, Mr. Beecher ? " asked Dr. 
Hammond. 

" Yes, I guess so," came the low reply. 

" How high can you raise it ? " 

" Well, high enough to hit you, doctor," said the 
clergyman, with a feeble smile. 

All the family was summoned as soon as the doctors 

pronounced the condition of Mr. Beecher dangerous. 

During Sunday and Monday he continued to sink slowly 

but surely, and his death occurred in the forenoon of 

Tuesday, the 8th. About three in the morning of that 

day Mr. Beecher began to fail rapidly, and at half-past 

four the doctor issued a bulletin saying that the end was 
22* 



530 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

approaching. There was a brief rally an hour later, but 
at half-past seven the sinking was renewed, and the fact 
of speedy death was known to be inevitable. In another 
hour Mr. Beecher was dying. The pulse grew more and 
more feeble, the breathing became irregular and shallow, 
there was an accumulation of mucus in the throat, and 
the respiration became stertorous. The pulse flickered 
and stopped, the breathing grew fainter and died away, 
the mouth closed, the muscles relaxed, and Henry Ward 
Beecher was dead ! 

His death was what he had wished for, painless, and 
not preceded by a long illness. He had often expressed 
the hope that he would die suddenly, and in the midst 
of work, and he had no sympathy with the prayer in the 
Episcopal service which asks that we may be delivered 
from sudden death. 

Not since the death of General Grant has the demise 
of any man touched the popular heart in America as did 
that of Mr. Beecher. Letters and telegrams of condo- 
lence came to Mrs. Beecher from all parts of the country, 
and there were several cablegrams from England to the 
same purpose. In Brooklyn and New York flags were 
at half-mast all over those cities, and many religious, 
political, and social organizations held special meetings 
to pass resolutions of sorrow. The letters and resolutions 
that reached the mourning family would fill a volume. 
All breathed the same sentiment, that a great man, a 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 531 

power in the nation and the world, had been laid low, 
and the event had stricken the whole country with 
grief. 

Private funeral services were held at the house on 
Thursday, March ioth, the Rev. Dr. Charles H. Hall, of 
Holy Trinity Church, Brooklyn, officiating. When Mr. 
Beecher's eldest sister, Catharine, went to live with her 
brother, Rev. Thomas K. Beecher, in Elmira, N. Y., 
and died there, Dr. Hall wrote to Mr. Beecher saying 
that, as Miss Beecher had at one time been a member of 
his church, he would be glad to go to Elmira and con- 
duct the funeral services. Mr. Beecher replied, thanking 
him, and said it would not be necessary ; " but," he 
added, " I wish now to mention what I have already 
told my family and friends, and I might as well tell it to 
you. It is that you shall have charge of my funeral if I 
should go before you. That you shall be present is my 
hope and desire." 

After the private service, the body was taken to Ply- 
mouth Church, where it lay in state during the rest of 
the day and till late in the evening. In compliance with 
Mr. Beecher's well-known desire, the church was deco- 
rated with flowers instead of the customary drapery of 
black. The huge audience-room was transformed into a 
bower of roses and smilax and evergreens. The reading- 
desk and the chair from the Mount of Olives were set 
on either side of the platform. Mrs. Susan Howard, the 



532 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

friend of half a century, who for years had furnished the 
decoration of the desk on festal occasions, had that his- 
torical object swathed in pink and French roses and 
vines. The stout chair where the pastor sat for many 
years was upholstered for Mrs. S. V. White in pink and 
Eucharis roses, white carnations, and smilax. Back of 
these pulpit-relics an arras of flowers stretched from the 
platform-floor almost to the summit of the giant organ, 
festoons of laurel-rope stretched from chandelier to the 
four corners of the ceiling, and a ball of roses hung from 
the former. The facade of the gallery was bright with 
potted plants, interspersed with wreaths of laurel. Ever- 
greens were around the walls both above and beneath 
the balcony, while under the gallery-wall smilax and 
flowers were also festooned. The front of the church 
outside was also decorated with evergreens. 

There was an immense crowd waiting outside the 
church, and when the doors were opened for the proces- 
sion it began immediately. By actual count, between 
seventy and seventy-five persons a minute got a chance to 
look at the life-like face of the dead preacher. It is a 
safe estimate to say that at least nine-tenths of the line 
was composed of women and children. Many of the 
women held handkerchiefs to their eyes, and not a few 
were led up to the casket sobbing and in tears. Strong 
men wept, and hurried by as if afraid that their emotions 
would overcome them. It was estimated that fully 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 533 

eighty thousand people passed the coffin of Mr. Beecher 
during the hours of Thursday and Friday when the pub- 
lic was admitted. 

The public funeral was on Friday, the nth, Dr. Hall 
paying an admirable tribute to his deceased friend, which 
was heard by an audience that filled every inch of sitting 
or standing room in the vast edifice. Simultaneously 
with this service there were services in four other churches 
of Brooklyn, a circumstance without a parallel in the his- 
tory of that city. These additional services were as fol- 
lows : First Baptist Church, by Rev. T. De Witt Talmage ; 
First Presbyterian Church, by Rev. C. Cuthbert Hall ; 
Church of the Saviour, by Rev. W. T. Dixon (colored) ; 
and Sands Street Methodist Church, by Rev. Alexander 
McLean. All the clergymen spoke eloquently in honor 
of Mr. Beecher, and dwelt earnestly upon the great work 
he had performed in his exceedingly active life. In the 
Sands Street Church, Rabbi Harrison spoke of the work 
of Mr. Beecher to secure the toleration of the Hebrew 
race in this and other countries, and added : 

Men revered him as they watched him in his pulpit, week after 
week, pleading for humanity. All sects revered him, all churches 
and creeds recognized in him the incarnation of their best thoughts. 
He was a hero, a moral and intellectual hero, a champion of the 
poor and the oppressed of every land and every creed. He was a 
protector of social equality, a champion of religious tolerance. He 
stands at the head of his age, and his fame will always remain. To 



534 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

all creeds, to all classes, he has been a help, a succor, a light to 
guide in the darkness. 

On the morning of Saturday, March 12th, the remains 
of Mr. Beecher were removed from Plymouth Church to 
the vault in Greenwood Cemetery. Only a limited 
number of persons accompanied the hearse. Altogether 
there were about fifty in the company, which consisted 
of the Church Committee, the trustees, the deacons, and 
a few prominent members of the church, representing 
various large family circles. All along the route many 
persons raised their hats as it passed — a deference to the 
dead common in other countries, but not here. Arrived 
at the cemetery, the casket was placed in a zinc-lined 
box and carried to the receiving vault, whose double 
gates were beautifully decorated with flowers. Rev. Mr. 
Halliday offered a touching prayer. The casket was 
placed in the vault, with its decorations of palms, and 
Henry Ward Beecher was at rest. 

It is probable that the remains will rest in the vault 
for at least a year, and in the meantime the family will 
secure a burial plot in Greenwood. It is a fact not gen- 
erally known, that Mr. Beecher had little respect for the 
bodies of the dead. He held that the spirit was the val- 
uable part, and when once it had gone out of the body 
there was little left worthy of love or sympathy. He 
could not understand the reason why people visited cem- 



HIS ILLNESS AND DEATH. 535 

eteries and spent their tears above the tombs of the dead. 
He never, or seldom, visited the resting-place of his chil- 
dren's remains. " I believe that they are in heaven, not 
in Greenwood," he would say. It was this belief which 
made him so careless about providing a plot for his own 
resting-place and for the widow and children who would 
come after him. 

Had Mr. Beecher lived until next October to cele- 
brate the fiftieth anniversary of his ordination as a minis- 
ter, the fortieth anniversary as Pastor of Plymouth 
Church, and the golden anniversary of his marriage, he 
would have received a testimonial of a noteworthy char- 
acter. President Cleveland and the members of his 
Cabinet, the Right Hon. W. E. Gladstone, Lord Tenny- 
son, and others prominent in the literary, social, and re- 
ligious world, had agreed to unite in the presentation to 
him of letters and literary contributions, which were to 
have been presented to Mr. Beecher at a public meeting, 
to be held in the Brooklyn Academy of Music early in 
October. 



CHAPTER XXV. 

ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 

Tributes from Many Christian Pulpits. — All Denominations Honor Him. 
— Loss of Beecher Like the Removal of a Mountain. — His Speeches 
in England one Long Speech. — His Fervid Eloquence. — The Great 
Leader in Pulpit and Republic. — Who will Wear His Mantle? — The 
Shakespeare of the Christian Pulpit. — A Marvellous Imagination — 
Wonderful Knowledge of Character. — Great in the Life of the Re- 
public. — The Most Striking Figure of Our Time. — The Incarnation 
of Love. — A Part of America's Life. — Tributes from the Hebrews 
of New York. — A Great Star Below the Horizon. — The Representa- 
tive of Democracy in the Pulpit. — The End. 

On the Sunday following Mr. Beecher's death nearly all 
the clergymen of New York and Brooklyn, as well as 
many others in all parts of the country, without regard 
to denominational differences, devoted a portion of their 
discourses to the character of this remarkable man and 
his influence upon the moral and religious world. Vol- 
umes might be compiled from these testimonials, and 
even then the supply would not be exhausted. All of 
them bore tribute to Mr. Beecher's transcendent abilities 
as a preacher and an orator, and as a man who loved his 
fellow man. In this, our concluding chapter, we have 
only the space for a few brief selections from the pulpit 
utterances in honor of his memory. 



ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 537 

Rev. J. H. Chadwick, the eloquent Unitarian preacher, 
of Brooklyn, said among other things : 

" The sense of loss and vacancy occasioned by the 
death of Henry Ward Beecher is common to all people 
of intelligence and thinking minds in the United States, 
but to us, who knew him in our daily walks, the loss is 
more keenly felt. He was our foremost citizen. He 
has carried the name of the city everywhere, and he has 
attracted more people to the city than any other man. 
His life has been one of the hardest kind of work. His 
work in crushing the slave power is hardly less than that 
of the great abolitionists, William Lloyd Garrison, Wen- 
dell Phillips, John Brown, and Abraham Lincoln. His 
work in robbing religion of its terrors is greater than that 
of any man the world has ever produced. The loss of 
Beecher is something like the sudden removal of a 
mountain. There it had been, year after year, our child- 
hood's wonder and our manhood's pride. To awake 
some morning and find the mountain gone is our feeling 
in these last days. But no such loss can compare with 
ours. He had faults, but they were unique. He spoke 
oftener from his emotions than from his beliefs. When 
he came to Brooklyn he was advised to let politics 
alone. Had they advised the sea to leave the moon 
alone they would have been listened to as much. No 
other orator had his power to call upon men to do and 
suffer all things for the right. Noisy opposition was 



538 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

meat and drink to him. His auditors never found him 
nodding. Oliver Wendell Holmes said that Beecher's 
five speeches in England were in reality one long speech, 
with its introduction in Manchester and its closing words 
in London. 

Rev. Charles H. Eaton, of the Church of the Divine 
Paternity, New York, took for his text Romans x. 15 : 
" How beautiful are the feet of them that preach the 
gospel of peace." In speaking of Mr. Beecher he said : 
" His was a noble character. His whole life was spent 
upon the broad ocean of humanity. Mankind was his 
study, and the amelioration of the race his constant aim. 
All that he was, was due to his ancestry. He came of a 
sturdy, honest stock, and inherited their virtues. He- 
redity counted more than country. While the glorious 
climate of Connecticut gave him a vigorous constitution, 
his mental powers were inherited away back from the 
sturdy blacksmith, Nathaniel Beecher, who plied upon 
his anvil under the very tree where the celebrated Dav- 
enport preached his first sermon in New England. 
From Nathaniel Beecher and his descendants down to 
the brainy Lyman Beecher, his distinguished father, 
Henry Ward Beecher inherited his manly spirit of inde- 
pendence, his love of religion, and broad spirit of philan- 
thropy. . . . " Greatness is derived in different fields 
of action. Stephenson's genius lay in an invention ; Sen- 
eca's in morals ; Webster's in statesmanship ; and Can- 



ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 539 

ning's in oratory. It was as an orator that Beecher 
will go down in history. All that he accomplished 
was through the power of his fervid eloquence. And 
why ? Because he dealt with great principles. He 
dealt with the verities of God. He removed the vail 
which hid the Redeemer from mankind. He was un- 
questionably one of the greatest preachers of the age, 
and as a leader of the masses, he had few equals." 

" Mr. Beecher's Mantle and Who Will Wear It," was 
the subject of Rev. N. B. Thompson's address at the 
Free Baptist Church, Twenty-fifth Street, near Eighth 
Avenue, New York. " During the past week," said Mr. 
Thompson, " the eyes of the world have been turned to 
the city across the river. For forty years there lived in 
Brooklyn a man whose name was a household word 
throughout the Christian world. Henry Ward Beecher 
was the head of the people, the Elijah of the Church. 
We shall never see his like again. What Elijah was to 
the other prophets, that man of Brooklyn was to the 
modern Church. The mantle of our later prophet is 
fluttering down from the skies, and no one dares to touch 
it or lay hold upon it. And now the question goes echo- 
ing through Christendom as to who shall wear it. There 
are many who would be glad to crawl into that mantle. 
But so large was it that it could wrap within it nine- 
tenths of the prophets of the present day and have room 
for more." 



540 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Henry Ward Beecher, the Shakespeare of the Chris- 
tian Pulpit," was the subject of Rev. John Rhey Thomp- 
son's discourse in the Washington Square M. E. Church, 
New York. After reviewing Mr. Beecher's firm action 
in the cause of the emancipation of the negro slaves in 
the South, the pastor narrated at length the great 
Brooklyn divine's work in freeing the pulpit from the 
scholasticism fastened upon it by the Calvinists. He 
made the pulpit, according to Mr. Thompson, a natural 
and humble place, and taught that right conduct led to 
correct belief, or, in the words of the Bible, " The pure 
in heart shall see God." 

"Shakespeare," continued Mr. Thompson, "was con- 
sidered the king of English literature, and what he is to 
literature Henry Ward Beecher is to the Christian 
pulpit. There are many points of similarity between 
the two. The critics often say that it is impossible that 
Shakespeare is the author of the works which bear his 
name. They ask, How is it possible for a man of his 
limited opportunities to write ' Hamlet ? ' It is even 
claimed that Lord Bacon was the author of the plays 
ascribed to Shakespeare. So with Beecher. He also 
was a man of limited opportunities. Both men learned 
from within. What other people dig patiently and 
wearily for, they abstracted by intuition, and what the 
one is to his field, the other is to his. In reading De 
Quincey and Paine on Shakespeare, one could strike out 



ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 541 

the names of the bard, and substituting Beecher, find the 
criticisms to apply equally well. Shakespeare was a 
man of royal imagination. Who denies a royal imagi- 
nation to Henry Ward Beecher ? Both were true to 
nature. Shakespeare had a marvellous knowledge of 
character. Beecher could sweep every key in the mighty 
organ of the human soul." 

At the Church of the Messiah, Rev. Robert Collyer 
prefaced his remarks by reading from 2 Chronicles, chap- 
ter xxiv., verse 16, " They buried him among the kings 
because he had done good, both toward God and toward 
his house." Continuing he said : 

" Mr. Beecher's death has touched the heart of our 
nation and moved it as it was never moved before by 
the death of one who has filled a sacred office. No 
nation's heart has been so moved since Martin Luther 
died three hundred and forty years ago. He was not 
an old man, for the autumn days had hardly touched 
the life that lay within. He was still the great leader in 
the American pulpit, and I know of no one who was 
greater in the life of the Republic, and so full of enthu- 
siasm for the work he had to do. His heart was open 
and warm, and his eye watched carefully for the light on 
all the wide horizons, and welcomed it with the gift and 
grace of earlier years rather than our later ones. Where 
would you look for the eagle glance, and the eager, open 
heart more surely than in the Plymouth pulpit. His 



542 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

laughter was blended with tears, and in his quick, clear 
wit, born of a man at his best, there still were woven 
threads of gold through the warp and woof of his public 
discourse and his private talk. Those who knew him 
best wondered how little three score and thirteen years 
had abated the royal gift. 

Not only did the clergymen of all Christian denomi- 
nations speak in his praise, but there were words of com- 
fort to his sorrowing friends from the Hebrew syna- 
gogues in New York and other cities. His love for 
mankind included all races and religions, and the 
Hebrews were prompt to acknowledge the services he 
had rendered to them on many occasions. At the me- 
morial service in the Temple Emanu-El, in New York, 
the front of the altar was decorated with a magnificent 
portrait of Mr. Beecher, and above it was suspended a 
large wreath of white flowers. Rev. Dr. Gottheil, rabbi 
of the temple, spoke of Mr. Beecher's address in that very 
temple two years before, on the occasion of the memorial 
services in honor of the celebrated Hebrew philanthro- 
pist, Sir Moses Montefiore, and read several extracts 
from it. He then delivered an affecting tribute in which 
he said : Henry Ward Beecher will live in generations 
to come, the giant he was. It can also be said of him 
as of the old prophet, that ' His eye did not grow dim.' 
Such a death is dying by the kiss of the Almighty. No 
mortal man has disclosed the true greatness of this coun- 



ESTIMATES OF HIS CHARACTER. 543 

try as Henry Ward Beecher. This typical American 
was the perfect citizen of the world. He disdained all 
outward show and artificial authority. A great, brilliant 
star has sunk below the horizon, and the American peo- 
ple are watching where it has disappeared, to wait — God 
knows how long — until his return." 

Professor Felix Adler, President and leader of the So- 
ciety for Ethical Culture, paid a glowing tribute to the 
memory of Mr. Beecher, closing as follows : " He was the 
type of the American democracy in the pulpit. He was 
not a vain man in the ordinary sense, but he was su- 
premely conscious of his power : no man ever more so 
than he. The secret of his power is to be found in the 
fact, that the American democracy beheld their qualities 
reflected in him as a mirror so enlarged and enhanced 
that he was pre-eminently the American Democratic 
man, the representative of American Democratic ideas 
in the pulpit. He rose above social prejudice, which is 
worse than political prejudice. Let him pass to his rest 
with Lincoln, Sumner, Phillips, and Grant. ' The great 
war preacher' — let that be his just title to enduring 
fame." 

Nothing can be more appropriate for the closing page 
of this memorial volume than some of *Mr. Beecher's 
utterances on the question of death and the future life. 

" To one who is living aright, no death can be sudden, 
and no place unfavorable. One step and all roads meet. 



V Sir 






544 LIFE AND WORK OF HENRY WARD BEECHER. 

" Dying is the best part of life to one who knows how 
to live worthily. 

"When we comprehend the fulness of what death 
will do for us, in all our outlook and forelook, dying is 
triumphing. Nowhere is there so fair a sight, so sweet a 
prospect, as when a young soul is passing away out of 
life and time through the gate of death — the rosy, the 
royal, the golden, the pearly gate of death. 

" Death is as sweet as flowers are. It is as blessed as 
bird-singing in spring. I never hear of the death of any- 
one who is ready to die, that my heart does not sing like 
a harp. I am sorry for those that are left behind, but 
not for those who have gone before. 

" Beat on, then, O heart, and yearn for dying. I have 
drunk at many a fountain, but thirst came again ; I have 
fed at many a bounteous table, but hunger returned ; I 
have seen many ^bright and lovely things, but while I 
gazed their lustre faded. There is nothing here that can 
give me rest, but when I behold thee, O God, I shall be 
satisfied." 



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